Just to recap a little...
A few weeks ago Charlie, a charge nurse in the Emergency Department of over 30 years, and Tess, another charge nurse were forced to choose between themselves who should be made redundant... Charlie ended up leaving post, much to the dismay of the staff.
Abs, another nurse, whilst fond of both his seniors, was seriously pissed that Charlie had left, and asked his union to support a strike. they did not, so he asked all the ED staff to follow policy to the letter and "Work To Rule" - this meant following their contracts to the letter (i.e. no unpaid overtime, no duties they weren't insured for and taking breaks as recommended)
As a result, the ED was seriously overstretched, and one doctor chose to blame Abs, saying he endangered patients.
And this was the brilliant bit.
Abs then made an impassioned speech about how he was constantly expected to work outside his contract. By taking breaks he was legally compelled to take, by not attending road accidents he wasn't insured to attend and by working to the rules supposedly in a nurse's contract, he said that he was indeed endangering lives. And that perhaps he should resign.
"But I won't." he said, "Because I want to be a good nurse."
"Why is it that we're supposed to have the best health service in the world, but it's run like a dodgy backstreet garage?"
Now... of course Casualty is a BBC drama, not a real-life documentary. But Abs' speech struck a chord with me.
I honestly don't have one F1/F2 doctor friend that doesn't have to work outside their contracted hours on a daily basis. Is it that they're lazy or incompetent? It's unlikely. There's just too much work to be done that simply doesn't fit into the contract.
A more senior doctor friend I have works on shift-rota that requires 14 doctors to work but only employs 11, and thus requires overtime from all staff, every day, every week. No effort has been made to fill these 3 vacant full-time posts, by the way.
And let's not start on nurses. I've worked as a health care assistant, so have a fair idea of how long things take. And it's rare that I go on a ward and see enough nurses to be able to cover patient's basis needs.
So what is this a rant about? I think the NHS is pretty good but of course not without its problems. I don't think I have enough experience to know how to deal with them, so I'm not going to try here.
But I do know that doctors or nurses are often cited as being incompetent or lazy. And the NHS is often criticised and rarely praised. It's used as a battleground for politicians.
My beef is with the attitude that NHS workers have developed a culture around themselves that requires them to work unpaid hours just to maintain patient safety. The culture that makes you feel guilty for being ill because you know your colleagues will be unable to cover for your absence. The culture that encourages you to think that by not pushing yourself up to your limits on nearly every day, you are responsible for endangering patient safety.
So what, you might say? What's an extra 30 minutes a day, with no breaks and a 20 minute lunch? Well, it's nearly 6 hours unpaid a week... that's a lot to ask of all your staff that other businesses wouldn't get away with.
To be a healthworker requires a lot of dedication. You agree to give yourself to the job in a way that few other professions do (perhaps the Army is a good comparison) - but you shouldn't have to agree to give your life away to save money that could employ someone to ease that burden.
And I really thank the BBC for making a drama that shows just how true this is.
You can watch the episode on BBC iPlayer for the next week, and a catch up clip on the show website.
