Herefordshire Council Confirms top appointments

[greenknight]

There is a lesson here for all those who could not sit around a table and talk. The IOC have been punished so we now have too ride out the storm.

The Old Conservative guard have strengthened their position.

[greenknight]

It's not for this topic but having just seen the size of the deficit within the NHS for 2014/15 not far off £1 billion pounds and with another £20 billion,s worth of cuts yet to be found this extra money promised is just a pipe dream! This year 2015/16 is going to be worse.

Guess where most of this money is being spent...on agency healthcare support in all its guises.

 

This also will have a major impact on local healthcare provision and a big headache for the health and well-being crew sitting on said fare council.

[dazza333]

Nurses are leaving the NHS in droves to go onto agencies because of the constant pressure they are under due to lack of staff and more and more complex patient care. Don't forget that a nurse spends 3 years at uni getting qualified to earn £10.96 per hour. That is not the salary of a professional and is barely enough to live on especially in Herefordshire with high rentals and expensive properties. Do you blame nurses for wanting to earn a reasonable living?

[dazza333]

I don't hear many people griping and moaning about agency civil servant or agency housing officers etc of which there are many. I think picking on agency nurses is an easy cop out.

[dazza333]

That fact that we are spending millions in rent and interest repayments to private financiers of our PFI hospitals is where you should be looking for solutions.

[dazza333]

Furthermore, please identify me one councillor with any up to date healthcare experience within our council to be able to make informed decisions?

[greenknight]

I think I did say all the guises Dazza and in fact Herefordshire is one of the cheaper places to live and rent...at the moment!!

The salary of the Nurse,ODP and Paramedic has always been a bone of contention and let's be honest it's something most of us as students are made aware of when we joined the profession.

[dazza333]

Yes we are aware of this as students Greenknight but we still need to know the facts and with agency nurses they are generally the better and sometimes if not mostly the cheaper option for NHS Trusts and Private facilities alike; Use only when needed ie, winter pressures, no pension to pay, no training to fund, no holiday or sick pay to pay etc etc. A flexible workforce is invaluable for an ever shifting healthcare environment.

[greenknight]

I should go on to add that I have always been confused as to why many choose a career in nursing when the academic requirements are not that far off medicine so why not train to be a medic where there are better salary expectations. Care of patients crosses all boundaries in healthcare it's just a question of where you prefer to be.

The agency dilemma has been a thorn in the side of healthcare for over thirty years in fact Operating Department Assistants were running high agency rates well before the nursing profession caught on. Sadly it's down to the strength of the Royal College of Nursing to make its case to the Health Secretary and until then the Agency bill for all NHS Staff will continue to rise as will our requirement to recruit nurses from overseas healthcare organizations depleting them of valuable resources.

[greenknight]

In my days of agency there was no sick pay, holiday pay etc but I now know that agency ODP,s receive all this.

[greenknight]

Furthermore, please identify me one councillor with any up to date healthcare experience within our council to be able to make informed decisions?

Yes this is a concern Dazza

[dazza333]

We are still suffering from the fallout from Labours' 1997 Government with the extremely expensive PFI hospitals which does not allow enough funding to staff them adequately, neither were we adequately prepared for the 'Aging Population' to become ill and infirm. Herefordshire boasts 1 in 3 persons of pensionable age, these older persons usually have complex healthcare needs at some point but what did we do? Build a smaller hospital! How very clever and informed.

[dazza333]

As for overseas nurses, the Philippines purposely have THE most Nursing Schools of and country pet population because the exported trained nurses bring back/send back valuable wealth into the Philippines. They have a production line of nurses ready to export.

[greenknight]

We are still suffering from the fallout from Labours' 1997 Government with the extremely expensive PFI hospitals which does not allow enough funding to staff them adequately, neither were we adequately prepared for the 'Aging Population' to become ill and infirm. Herefordshire boasts 1 in 3 persons of pensionable age, these older persons usually have complex healthcare needs at some point but what did we do? Build a smaller hospital! How very clever and informed.

Again I can't disagree mate.

 

PFI was a quick fix at time for the man with blue eyes but like quick loans you pay a high price ultimately.

[dazza333]

*per

[greenknight]

As for overseas nurses, the Philippines purposely have THE most Nursing Schools of and country pet population because the exported trained nurses bring back/send back valuable wealth into the Philippines. They have a production line of nurses ready to export.

Been to Manilla and seen them..It's an industry chap but I did not see the benefits to their local hospitals.

Most qualify and head to UK or Australia( if they can get in).

[greenknight]

We went off topic Dazza but healthcare in this County will be a major concern to all including our local council.

[dazza333]

I've seen it all before and can write the script; ill informed Herefordshire Councillors will listen to rumour that agency nurses should be stopped due to expense - Richard Bekken stops agency spending - hospital becomes dangerous (or more so than now)- Bekken hits panic button and spends loads on agency nurses.....cyclical cobblers

[Adrian Bridges]

There is a lesson here for all those who could not sit around a table and talk. The IOC have been punished so we now have too ride out the storm.

The Old Conservative guard have strengthened their position.

Greenknight I totally agree, 4 years of further cuts and borrowing from the Conservative sin Herefordshire, then we have 5 years of the Conservatives cuts at National Government oh help us with the NHS as Cameron or the Conservatives in Hereford will not. 

[dazza333]

Yep Adrian, your not wrong...cut cut cuts galore, lots of higher earning job posts disappearing fast replaced by lots of basic rate jobs. Poverty galore whilst the well off thrive.

[greenknight]

I've seen it all before and can write the script; ill informed Herefordshire Councillors will listen to rumour that agency nurses should be stopped due to expense - Richard Bekken stops agency spending - hospital becomes dangerous (or more so than now)- Bekken hits panic button and spends loads on agency nurses.....cyclical cobblers

It's a terrible wheel but one that turns round and around Dazza.

We both know that the best solution is to pay a good salary but again another common trick seen in the past is to raise salaries based on scales, incremental levels, bands call them what you will and then review some time later and then trim down. That's been going on since the late eighties and won't end any time soon. It comes back to my biggest fear which is the ultimate privatisation of the NHS and as an old timer I don't wish to see. I became part of it back in the late 197o,s not because of money or career but because it's what I wanted out of life and I enjoyed it. More money meant more hours 24/36 hour shifts in theatres and weekends that went on and on but it was a buzz an honourable profession which one way or the other I've secured a career out of. After all not many people could say that they installed an anaesthetic machine in a Scandinavian charity hospital half way up the Ho Chi Min trail with little Vietnamese kids pressing their English language skills upon you whilst their conical shaped school hats are repositioned by an ever grateful teacher whose thankful that you bought the means that their child can now have their cleft lip repaired.

 

If the NHS is privatised by stealth many will be left behind and that will be a tragedy. That said there may come a time when difficult decisions will have to be made and your right it's not just agency staff... no it will be the pension bill that will ultimately cripple it.

[dazza333]

 

 

If the NHS is privatised by stealth many will be left behind and that will be a tragedy. That said there may come a time when difficult decisions will have to be made and your right it's not just agency staff... no it will be the pension bill that will ultimately cripple it.

 

I agree with what you're saying Greenknight but please allow me to play Devils Advocate. Why would privatisation be such a bad thing? At least we would have transparency and see fewer Stafford's or Morecombe Bays because as non Government institutions surely there would be greater transparency rather than cover ups and fudging of figures. And the Government would be more inclined to investigate problem hospitals as they have no financial interest in it.

 

I do think that we are being privatised by stealth slowly but surely though. Is it Hinchinbrook NHS Trust that is or was run by Jesse Norman's alleged friends at Circle?

[greenknight]

Circle did get a taste of running an acute hospital and the didn't like why....Well it's difficult to budget for emergency procedures and maternity services which I think they have at Hinchinbrooke. Insurance companies don't like the risk elements either!

[Pete Boggs]

Furthermore, please identify me one councillor with any up to date healthcare experience within our council to be able to make informed decisions?

Same probably goes for officers as well. Isn't the Council currently borrowing Shropshire's Director of Public Health on a part time basis? The two previous Herefordshire incumbents both disappeared in mysterious circumstances i.e. likely to have been paid off.

[Chris Chappell]

Imagine my anger when I discovered that neither the Leader of Council or Leader of the Independents knew who 2together NHS Foundation Trust are! I am only just calming down now. The Council works closely with its NHS partners yet the key providers of care for those with mental health were unknown to some of our leading councillors.

It's a disgrace, deplorable and the health and social care professionals I have spoken to since Thursday when I discovered these people did not know of this, are equally surprised and annoyed!

 

I talked to one or two senior councillors after the meeting of Council on Friday who also seemed unaware! God help us that we have some ignorant people running the Council. Dazza I am going to need your advise now I am on the Health Scrutiny Committee. We may need to meet for a drink some time.

Thinking about I do't think I have calmed down yet, better get a whiskey!

[Victor Wright]

Imagine my anger when I discovered that neither the Leader of Council or Leader of the Independents knew who 2together NHS Foundation Trust are! I am only just calming down now. The Council works closely with its NHS partners yet the key providers of care for those with mental health were unknown to some of our leading councillors.

It's a disgrace, deplorable and the health and social care professionals I have spoken to since Thursday when I discovered these people did not know of this, are equally surprised and annoyed!

 

I talked to one or two senior councillors after the meeting of Council on Friday who also seemed unaware! God help us that we have some ignorant people running the Council. Dazza I am going to need your advise now I am on the Health Scrutiny Committee. We may need to meet for a drink some time.

Thinking about I do't think I have calmed down yet, better get a whiskey!

 

Don't have too many Chris ha ha 

[dazza333]

Hiya Chris, good to see you're on the health scrutiny committee. Inbox me if you need assistance. Certainly don't mind open debate and questions on here either though because there appears to be a myriad of sharp, analytical minds prevalent.

[Denise Lloyd]

I am not at all surprised that they know not of the existence of 2togetherNHSFoundation I strongly suspect that the majority of them don't know all parts of Hereford and Herefordshire. Chris - good job somebody who knows what they're doing is on such an important committee.

Frightening that such inexperienced people have our futures in their hands.  

[Glenda Powell]

Chris, I am surprised (or may be not) you have run down the Independent leader, not every body knows about 2together in fact I would say no one outside of Health & Social Care Scrutiny does unless they are a carer, you were a carer so obviously you do, and so do I having sat on Heath & Social Care Scrutiny for 12 years when I was a councillor. It is obvious from your post 25, you know nothing about the scrutiny committee you are on otherwise you would not be asking for advice from an unelected person, so how you think you can critisize someone else is wrong. No one knows everything on the council and you know we all consentrated on the committee's we were on, and rightly so. It is obvious you are not happy being an Independent councillor, so why don't you leave you were leaning towards IOC so why don't you ask them if you can join them?

[dazza333]

Chris, I am surprised (or may be not) you have run down the Independent leader, not every body knows about 2together in fact I would say no one outside of Health & Social Care Scrutiny does unless they are a carer, you were a carer so obviously you do, and so do I having sat on Heath & Social Care Scrutiny for 12 years when I was a councillor. It is obvious from your post 25, you know nothing about the scrutiny committee you are on otherwise you would not be asking for advice from an unelected person, so how you think you can critisize someone else is wrong. No one knows everything on the council and you know we all consentrated on the committee's we were on, and rightly so. It is obvious you are not happy being an Independent councillor, so why don't you leave you were leaning towards IOC so why don't you ask them if you can join them?