Posted by ToryxGirl on Wednesday, 08 November 2006 19:42:36

Fantastic!!! I am really pleased about the latest PPB being about the NHS - def. needs to be raised much higher in agenda as it is a major concern of the public. Excellent.

I especially like the idea of (yet again) allowing anyone to send in videos which the PPB will consist of.

Posted by canvas on Wednesday, 08 November 2006 19:53:13

Brilliant. A very 'diplomatic' response when asked your views on the US election. haha. Well done.
But we know you must be very happy to see that the world is ready for change. You're in a good position at the moment.
I hope you sieze the chance to persuade the UK that your time has arrived! I think we're ready for change too.

Thank you for suggesting that Tony or Gordon participate in a debate on Webcameron. I'm sure they will find every excuse to avoid debating in the cyber world. Maybe the idea is just too progressive for them to deal with?!

Carry on the good work - and don't forget we need those special schools set up in every county for children with special needs. Notably - severe dyslexia. Let's salute the most recent 'Fifteen' gradute, Aaron Craze, who overcame a disadvantaged background to now run the new pub owned by Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Foundation.

Here is the article from tonights Evening Standard newspaper (below) - inspirational!
________________________
He was one of the first trainees hired by Jamie Oliver to help in his London restaurant Fifteen. Now Aaron Craze has been given his own place to run.

The 28-year-old from Fulham has been installed as the manager of The Cock gastropub in Essex and his attempts to turn it into a success will be featured in a Channel 4 documentary series, Jamie's Chefs: Cutting The Apron Strings, next year.

It is a remarkable turnaround for a man who left school at 16 without qualifications and had various dead-end jobs before he met the TV chef in 2003. "I was a bit of a lost soul," said father-of-two Mr Craze. "I was kicked out of primary school at 10 for misbehaving but actually I had dyslexia which wasn't diagnosed.

"My dad never had a job, he was basically a bit of an Arthur Daley-type and wasn't around or would come home drunk. My mum had to deal with my brother who has cerebral palsy."

When he saw Jamie's Kitchen on television he decided to become a chef. "My mum couldn't cook but, funnily enough, my dad was great," he said. "He used to make fresh bread, doughnuts and curries." He got a job at Fifteen after his girlfriend Nikki applied on his behalf and became a pasta chef, winning an award for his oxtail gnocchi.

Now Mr Craze has been picked from 50 ex-trainees to run the first Fifteen Foundation-funded pub near Braintree. He has been lent the £120,000 start-up cost at a low interest rate and must eventually repay it.

The pub will serve his signature dish plus fresh pasta, spatchcock chicken, antipasti and a variety of puddings. The manager said: "It proves that if you work hard and focus you can get somewhere."

• A Fifteen Foundation fundraiser, Jamie's Big Night, will be held at the Roundhouse on 30 November. http://www.fifteenfoundation.co.uk<

Posted by harrypotter on Thursday, 09 November 2006 15:12:08

So much is wrong with the NHS I barely know where to start. I hope the Tories start by giving people a choice about which hospitals/doctors/etc they use. This could be an NHS-internal market to start with, then expand it to include private operators later...?

Posted by ComfortPoint on Friday, 10 November 2006 15:47:09

I think the NHS is the best in the world and should not be changed. Labour closing hospitals is bad news I just wish when savings are there to be made without compromising on patient safety why not do it. Everywhere you go all you hear is overspends debts and job losses would it not be great to hear on the news one day that the health secretary has made a change they has saved money. For example changing all type one diabetics like my dad onto comfort point pen needles rather then Novofine could save the NHS unto 20%. 20% saving of anything has surely got to be a step forward. Especially when the money saved can fund new treatments new doctors and nurses to keep our NHS the best in the world

Posted by Faanarmy on Wednesday, 15 November 2006 19:46:14

Hi David!

I think that the only thing that needs to be said about the National Health service, in the UK,
is that the whole of the rest of the world have envied it for years and years!

Do we now want to ruin
something that is the envy of the world, to the point of jealousy, and that many migrants from other
countries would declare support to the British Isles alone for if afforded such a superior service?

Recently more money has been spent on administrative consultants fees to investigate alternatives to a national
Health service, and new administrators, than has been spent where it matters! Patients waiting for a kidney transplant, or a
heart transplant do not want to be told that their operation is on hold because the money for the operation has been spent on a new government "quango investigative body" or on a newly appointed executive council with five to ten new administrators, to a geographical area, whilst nurses are being sacked because of lack of money within the same regional hospitals.

The money must be spent on the people who matter and not on middle management so much in the future!
The people who matter are the doctors and nurses who have to physically carry our surgical operations for
the improvement of health of our nation within each geographic area.
A nurse costs between 3 and 5 times less than a senior medical service adminsitrative consultant to the National Health Service.

Let us see all of these senior administrative Health Service Consultants sacked and many more new nurses, and senior doctors with operating procedure experience, brought in to give local communities the service that they really need for their families!!!?

The service that the community needs!

The service that they really want in order to be proud to use that which we call the "National Health Service". A service for all. A service to be proud of. The envy of the world.

Sir Andrew
----------------------------------
Sir Andrew Siddle B.Sc(Hons).,M.Soc.Sc.,Property and land law specilaist going
back to feudal Britain.
----------------------------------

A British single nation Conservative.

Posted by Graham1955 on Tuesday, 21 November 2006 14:41:55

I have worked in the NHS for 29 years and I have just received my job at risk letter. I maintain life support equipment, which is an important service for all Theatres, ICU,CICU, Neuro units, A&E; departments, Neonatal and Maternity units as well as ward areas. With out this in house service it is not only dangerous but also very expensive to bring in outside contractors to maintain. We are needed on sight to act quickly.

People tend to forget about other services in a hospital, without which you could not function in safe way. I can and have saved the NHS thousands of pounds a year in the work that I do, and I fight for the NHS to get a good deal on new equipment and spares for this equipment, but today that does not matter as the management side that decide where to cut can only see the short time gain and not the long term consequences for the Trust.

The hospital that I work is Southampton General Hospital. I have watched year after year since 1997 Labour's financial mismanagement, inadequate planning, unfair funding and money wasted. New computer systems, new working practices, new ordering systems, new this and that, if we say it does not work well, then we are told that we do not like change. Change for the better is a good thing but when change only makes things worse, then it is not. It is about time that they listen to the staff that has the experience.

There are also 19 other members of staff that maintain equipment that is used on patients as well as myself that are now at risk because of mismanagement and inadequate planning. These people that mismanage will be given golden handshakes and/or new jobs in the NHS, and we will all be put on the scrap heap. It will be another blunder by the management and will cost the NHS dear. We have already been swindled by the agenda for change, which was unfair to a large number of staff, and now we face being made redundant.

I myself have a good chance of being made redundant because I am off sick. I have worked for 29 years in the NHS and have an excellent sickness record, which was until September 15th 2005. I slipped on a very wet floor on one of the wards, the floor should have been dried but it was left extremely wet. The cleaner could not understand English and had to be told a few times before they could understand. I was off for 7 weeks. I was then told that I would need an arthroscopy because I had pulled off a piece of bone. I had the arthroscopy on February 3rd 2006 and was told that I would need a total knee replacement and was off for 8 weeks. I have been off for the last 3 weeks with a problem with the knee and my Achilles tendon. After pressure from my GP I now have a date for this Operation on December 6th, over a year waiting and asking for my knee to be sorted out.

There is one thing that I would agree with Labour about the NHS, that is that the public most of the time get very good treatment and have a positive attitude when in an NHS hospital. But I would like to point out that this is not because of the Labour Government, but it is down to the good will of the staff that works in the NHS despite the way they are treated and abused by this Labour Government. Please could you tell them this the next time they spout off and try to make out that it is down to them?

Please don’t forget about the rest of the staff in the NHS.


Graham Chapman

Posted by Ruler on Monday, 15 January 2007 09:26:23

It is time for the NHS to become totally non-political. It should also be broken down into smaller local professionally led units answerable to the local populace in some way. I am not sure how the taxes under this system could/should be raised but the budgets should be under the direct control of each unit whether hospital or GP sugery. The NHS is owned by the electorate not a political party.
The re is a need to bring back the whole of the NHS as a 24/7 service not repeat not a nine- to - 5five and 5 day working week. The patients' /clients' needs are 24/7 not 5-9!

Posted by PaulTom on Monday, 12 February 2007 22:45:44

Agenda for Change -paymodernisation must be the biggest waste of resources both financial (taxpayers/ patients money) and resource wise in the history of NHS. Detrimential to staff reduction in moral, divisive- detrimental to patients as staff from various professions taken from their main job or demotivated.

The system has taken 5 years to introduce and is still nowhere near final completion.
It is the bureaucratic implementation of this system that has wasted greatest time and greatest amount of finance not any actual increase in staffing wages. In fact many staff have lost money and unions have not helped their members much at all in this.

Also greater inequality post AFC than pre AFC for numerous staff i.e. staff previously on paratity wage wise e.g porters now have different wage Bands in different Trusts e.g. Band 2 in some Trusts but Band 1 in others. This is just an example true for all jobs and professions within NHS. Lower paid especially have greatest inequality so mmuch for Equality of same pay for equal work.

A lot of NHS staff will be voting for conservatives next election.