Comments on Dr Rant: MTAS - It's Raining Shit

At last someone actually notices why locums have h...

2007-11-27T11:25:00.000Z

At last someone actually notices why locums have had enough!

I've been locuming for 3 years - I have a second, non-medical career - and it suited me to do this, plus the NHS needs a small cohort of good-quality locums in order to function well. People like me who arrive, can get to grips with an unfamiliar computer system and paperwork in less than 30mins, work our backsides off and leave clear handover information for the next doctor. That's what I've been doing and I am very good at it, because nearly every employer has commented on it.

However I recently started getting letters from agencies saying I had to have certification in manual handling, fire safety, hand washing (!), risk management, incident form completion...in all there was, on average, a list of 8 'courses' that I had to go on to achieve competency and the requisite certificate. And I will have to do this EVERY FUCKING YEAR!

Added to that they have to see all my medical certificates every year (in case I've mysteriously metamorphosed into someone who didn't qualify in 1992) and I have to fill in the bloody CRB paperwork individually for every one of them, most of whom also demand that I pay upfront for it.

Leaving aside the fact that (for instance) wrt fire safety, there are many aspects significant to your working location that cannot be covered by a 'one size fits all' course, this stuff takes hours. Days/weeks if you actually factor in getting to and from the courses.

Plus of course they also demand your medical history for 'occupational health', though as you have to return this information to a general address you know that any chance of confidentiality is well and truly fucked.

The answer?

Dr Rant has it absolutely right.

I fly out of Heathrow next week. I doubt I'll be back.

I reported several senior members of DH, COPMED an...

2007-11-26T13:13:00.000Z

I reported several senior members of DH, COPMED and MMC team to GMC, but they bounced the report saying that the managment of MMC and MTAS "were not to do with direct patient care". Well it strikes me that having hardly any doctors around in mythical teams affects direct patient care. But then I am not modernised, I still think that you need a doctor to do the work of a doctor

The evil that men do lives after them - especially...

2007-11-23T13:51:00.000Z

The evil that men do lives after them - especially at night and on weekends.

re: long winded docDont kid yourself, pre-Shipman ...

2007-11-23T00:00:00.000Z

re: long winded doc

Dont kid yourself, pre-Shipman medical regulation was a joke. And thanks to buffoons like yourself (the old GMC = Gentleman's Club), we are now paying for it with grotesquely excessive levels of medical regulation found today.

Dr F

yesterday at PMQs, Gordon Brown denied David Camer...

2007-11-22T20:13:00.000Z

yesterday at PMQs, Gordon Brown denied David Cameron's accusation of systematic failure in the government's handling of personal data. He attributed the Treasury's little local difficulty to individual failure to follow the correct procedure.

I was reminded of the late Dr Harold Shipman. He was an individual who failed to follow procedures so why did Her Majesty's Government see his case as indicating a systematic failure of medical self-regulation?

'Oh yes, it is because you are all fucking idiots'...

2007-11-22T15:55:00.000Z

'Oh yes, it is because you are all fucking idiots'

Thanks for cheering me up, that sums up it up nicely! :o)

The Dr Rant team have a brief respite from GP bash...

2007-11-22T07:52:00.000Z

The Dr Rant team have a brief respite from GP bashing. Now it's the turn of the consultants

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7104063.stm

Scares the hell out of me. Whenever we page a doc...

2007-11-22T05:29:00.000Z

Scares the hell out of me. Whenever we page a doctor we can never get one, we never know which docs are covering which team because they constantly switch. We know they are overwhelmed.

No anonymous, the nurses cannot just take over their work. If I have someone with heart failure and increasing SOB I need to get a doc to EXAMINE him. If I were just to go ahead and guess and give the guy some IV furosemide without an order they would take my registration.

Yet when this happens the docs are telling us just to give it because they are too busy and they will come down later to sign for it. Yeah right!!! I know they are busy but I'm not going to play doctor.

WE are all screwed. The lack of doctors makes the nurses afraid to go to work sometimes. One nurse I work with couldn't get a doctor to review a patient who was deteriorating fast so she had to put the crash call out. There just are not enough doctors to go around at my hospital...or nurses.

Scary. Many more are going to "fuck off".

And yet none the less, we have no other training o...

2007-11-22T01:55:00.000Z

And yet none the less, we have no other training options in this country.

Dr Sniper

Even those doctors in training posts are 'fucked o...

2007-11-22T01:29:00.000Z

Even those doctors in training posts are 'fucked off' demoralised and raring to go. MTAS has killed the profession and will destroy the NHS as we know it. Well done Hewitt and Bliar waht a wonderful legacy!

I do love the article on 'black alert in norfolk.I...

2007-11-21T23:50:00.000Z

I do love the article on 'black alert in norfolk.
I wonder if people realise that every hospital in the south east of the country is also on 'black alert' (i.e. not a single bed left, people in corridors etc).

Hastings hospital, Eastbourne, Brighton, Kent and Sussex, Bexhill...

Incidentally they closed a number of wards in these hospitals this year...stats gathered during a period of 2 weeks. in the summer. Show they aren't needed.

HA!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/7106402...

2007-11-21T22:56:00.000Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/7106402.stm

On tonight's News it is reported that a 'junior ma...

2007-11-21T22:38:00.000Z

On tonight's News it is reported that a 'junior manager' aged 23 has resigned following the misplacement of the personal data of millions. At 23 he had the wisdom to do the right thing! If only more civil servants would honourably meet their responsibilities!

Whither Sir Liam? Your piece shows the practical problems of his buffoonery, most relatively easily foreseen if he had the wisdom to consult with the juniors he has displaced.

He MUST RESIGN!

welcome to the public sector

2007-11-21T22:17:00.000Z

welcome to the public sector

They'll just give the work to to the nurses and pa...

2007-11-21T22:07:00.000Z

They'll just give the work to to the nurses and pay them more to do them as well. British medicine RIP