Well why doesn't Hunt start by insisting that GP surgeries open 24 hours and on weekends? Far more contacts with the NHS are with GPs that with hospitals.

As far as hospitals are concerned either you are going in there for some sort of procedure which, if it requires hospitalisation, almost certainly requires a consultant and not a junior doctor or an emergency situation which obviously isn't restricted to weekends.

Also why does the patient have a "special" weekend to do "special" things like hospital treatment but medical staff don't have weekends, just 24 hour, seven day week lives?

If your argument is about the best use of resources, then fine, lets get really radical and start charging for weekend non-emergency treatment. That will pay for the staff costs and reduce the burden during the week.

The contract is part of the change over to 24/7.

Whether doctors do this one example is irrelevant to the discussion of whether it's worth changing over.

Lol the ones who will make a small reduction in pay already work weekends. They can't argue it both ways.

And they won't be working 24/7. The service will be available 24/7, there is a difference.

Feel free to bring up charging extra for weekend services to doctors. They will be the first to be against it.

Is Hunt actually suggesting that there should be 24/7 access to non emergency services? Also are junior doctors already not contracted for up to 60hours per week?

In any case while I don't have a problem with extending the times a service is offered I generally do have a problem with that service being extended without the support of the people that will be providing it it. A problem with harm caused because of resources being unavailable over the weekend is different to you being inconvenienced when you want your holiday jabs.

Sorry I don't understand what you want.

Do you and the public you quoted (without sources again) want non emergency medical services to be available 24/7 or not? If so, why isn't Hunt getting GPs to work 24/7? What additional hospital treatment will now be provided by the junior doctors under the new arrangements?

I thought Jeremy hunt had said the deal was cost neutral?

Who's going to go the their GP in the middle of the night? maybe the odd person here and there would make use of it but it can't be worth opening for. Unless were making GP surgeries the new A&E which is probably a bad idea.

why cant we just let chemists have access to certain aspects of our medical records and deal with the skin conditions, flu, repeat prescriptions etc that take up valuable GP time. this would free up GPs and reduce the amount of people that visit A and E with matters their GP could deal with simply because its nearly impossible to get a GP appointment within any reasonable time frame.

It would cost a huge amount of money and take years to design, build and roll out an IT system to chemists that will reveal only the non-sensitive parts of patient record.

let them access it all then

Stupid idea.

If a doctor wasn't required to check the patient before issuing a repeat prescription then they could just write a multi-prescription in the first place.

I said most will get a pay rise. Most isn't all.

Its something like three quarters get a pay rise and a quarter gets a reduction.

I think it's more like 3/4 pay rise, 1/4 same, 1% reduction.

classic right wing thinking: everything is driven by financial greed.

no mate, some people do things because they want to help others. some others do things because they want to achieve greatness. Greatness does not necessarily mean richness.

... And some people do a job because they love it. This is the sort of thing the Right never understands, because they are solely concerned with the financial bottom line.

sez jezzer's minions, but they have been caught out bs-ing multiple times in the dispute. Also they have admitted that the deal involves protection so that not too many get a pay cut and this won't apply to new entrants.

I really dont get how people can be so sure of this when there are so many different but coherent sources on this information, most of which are favouring one or the other argument.

...and yet I work in education. Something the left will never understand. That you can work with your heart, and vote with your head.

Even though i dont agree with you on this, does this not annoy you that the ones currently working extra and weekend hours are going to be seeing the pay reduction, and the normal people will get a pay rise?


Fundamentally its making being a doctor more expensive-more expensive childcare etc.,whilst also impacting social lives.

Just seems bad

Again i would like to see first world countries and how they do things weekend wise and pay wise. I haven't bothered to read much about it from either side though feel reasonably confident Hunt is being a Hunt

Yeah faír to say regardless of which side your on hunts been a hunt throughout this process.

Similar to boris/tfl and the tube strikes.

Ppl promising more services at reduced costs===fair deal???

What a shame you then go and undo your good work by voting Tory (or UKIP).

"I'm not politically biased, one of my friends is a Tory."

This is a bad argument against him saying doctors are overpaid. Its just exactly what he said with a different focus.