Alan Johnson and his black and white cat yesterday
Dear Sir/Madam
Recently, you will have received a letter/'briefing note' from Alan Johnson, the Secretary of State for Health, urging you to 'attack' the BMA's position on the new 'contract' for GPs.
May I remind you that I have face-to-face, one-on-one contact with over 100 voters per week, 84% of whom ARE happy with the hours that we offer.
I take great pleasure in explaining to my patients just how incompetent your party's managing of the NHS has been, and how angry we are about the disgusting smear campaign your spin doctors have launched on GPs in the press. I explain to them that I don't earn a quarter of a million pounds per year, and that I only managed to play two rounds of golf in the whole of last year because I was so busy filling in useless fucking paperwork. On the whole, my patients find my opinions very interesting.
My practice may or may not be in a marginal Labour held constiuency.
There are around 40,000 GPs in the UK, most of whom feel like me.
Thankyou for you kind attention.
Dr Francis X Rant
Dr Rant
Dr Cardigan
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11 comments:
I do the same with my patients.
Last week, I saw approximately 150 patients. Many of them came with family members.
They all seemed interested.
You don't learn a lot from the 84 per cent figure other than that there are points where people lie to opinion pollsters. See also climate change and "shy" Tory voters pre-1992.
You get very different results out of qual. Intriguingly the views of (non doctor) NHS staff are roughly in line with the general population on this one.
aah yes but Mr Brown seems to have all of the UK's media on his side. Still the focus on you money grabbing GP's takes the heat of us infectious nurses
"aah yes but Mr Brown seems to have all of the UK's media on his side."
Further to my previous comment I would point out that the Mail is a business. It does not sell papers by printing what No 10/DH want, it does so by confirming the pre-existing prejudices of its readership.
If you want to understand why you are getting a beating I would question what the Mail's market researchers are telling Dacre & co and then ask whether this fits with whatever line DH is pushing.
What pisses me off is that Postie Pat is briefing that "Gordon Brown wants surgeries to open longer and deliver a far more "personalised" service" (at least, that is what the independent reports.
Does he not realise that it may not be entirely possible to push these two things to the maximum without their becoming mutually exclusive?? What a fuckwit.
At least he's admitting that this is all Gordo the Fist's idea and not based on any evidence (though if he's got any sense this is the basis of any future defence, on being accused of shafting the NHS for good, that he was "onl;y following orders").
At least if he wants all the back-bench fodder to dutifully slag off the BMA and denounce their apparently unrealistic and unreasonable views, there is the possibility that, as they mouth off, some of them will get challenged on this and that warnings of the imminent shit-storm will consequently be dragged into the press and the public's consciousness at last.
Anon speak for yourself you twit.
Today i was working in a department that had 3 doctors and roughly 4 times as many non doctors. The main topic of conversation is on how they are getting screwed...funnily enough we all shared pretty similar views on the NHS...but then you would knowbest as you obviously spend all day chatting to non- medics who work in the NHS.
Just point of accuracy: I discovered yesterday that the letter went to ALL MPs, not just the NuLab acolytes.
The LibDems are not happy about it, for whatever that is worth (met with Norman Baler, LibDem Lewes, yesterday afternoon).
"Anon speak for yourself you twit.
Today i was working in a department that had 3 doctors and roughly 4 times as many non doctors. The main topic of conversation is on how they are getting screwed...funnily enough we all shared pretty similar views on the NHS...but then you would knowbest as you obviously spend all day chatting to non- medics who work in the NHS."
Actually I run public opinion research programmes for a living and hence have a vague idea what I'm talking about.
Read what I wrote again - nothing you said contradicts anything I said in any way. It is entirely possible to think that you're being dumped on by the government and think you may have trouble getting a GP appointment. I am well aware, though that this isn't top of mind for staff by any stretch of the imagination.
The risk factors for thinking you may have trouble accessing primary care often relate to busy work patterns and childcare responsibilities (sound familiar?) These are common to both some groups of NHS staff and some groups of patients.
I've sent a suitabley toned down letter pointing out that we do affect voters in subtle ways.
But how many GPs have sent any letters to their MPs suggesting that they back off?
Can you restore the link to the letter. It currently points to your blogger login page
I think the message is, open out of hours
or else!
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