Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 05:40:18 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Media/government turning against the NHS again

Started by Fambo Number Mive, July 24, 2020, 09:50:07 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Fambo Number Mive

The media narrative is slowly changing. This was on the front page of the BBC website today: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-53514524

I imagine the huge majority of NHS workers aren't asking for discounts unless the business was offering them during the lockdown. Still, it suits the media to push an anti NHS narrative now. Never mind the recent vote by MPs or nurses not getting a pay rise.

Of course the establishment and much of the media have always hates the NHS, they just had to be careful during lockdown. Now it's NHS workers demand cut price meals etc again ahead of the NHS being sold off in 2022.

BlodwynPig

ha, I just saw that and thought the same. There needs to be strong and ultimate pushback to this.

Fambo Number Mive

Boycott of the restaurants concerned would be a start, although I don't live anywhere near them so wouldn't go anyway.

Rizla

Just bizarre. How did this non-story even come about? Did the business owners contact the BBC? I don't see how or why.

shiftwork2

The narrative over the last ten years has been 'public sector leeches' in most of the UK press so the weird bit was the temporary elevation to clap status.  This is just back to the norm.

Thomas

QuoteAn Edinburgh fish and chip owner, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: "I had a call from a nurse at a hospital asking for a free meal for her colleagues, it was five suppers and came to about £40.

"I asked her why and she said because it would help with all the stress they were going through at the moment.

"A week later two nurses in their uniforms came into my shop and one asked for a discount and when I said no she started arguing with me. I was saying you earn a full wage but she kept asking and asking until her colleague stepped in and said enough and told her to pay.

"Last night I had a man who said he was a paramedic who asked for an NHS discount but when my staff said no he was fine about it.

"I like to help everyone but unfortunately there is only so much we can do.

"NHS staff keep asking and it's not right. It would make our life much easier if they would please stop asking for discounts."

The bolded line - problem solved, then? If you can't afford to give discounts... stop giving them. I'm sure NHS workers aren't holding chippies at gunpoint demanding cheaper scampi.

First, however, make sure to speak anonymously to a journalist who will report your recollections word-for-word.

Rizla

#6
pm'd this person with a polite enquiry, BLOCKED LOL

BlodwynPig

She's not a journalist, barely human. Just a neoliberal capitalist enabler. The rotters have been at it for years, but its great that so many are breaking free from their clutches.

Quote from: Rizla on July 24, 2020, 10:16:10 AM
here's the journalist's facebook page if anyone fancies asking her directly what the fuck this is all about -https://www.facebook.com/angie.brown.100046

I've angrily demanded a refund of £1.99 for my Bizarre Inc. "I'm Gonna Get You" CD single from her. I'd take it back to Our Price, but it's a Virgin Media phone shop now.

idunnosomename

NHS workers may ONLY shop at the designated NHS HOURS (7-8am and 9-10pm) so normal people dont catch all their germs. They should saving peoples lives anyway, not buying biscuits!

EOLAN

Quote from: shiftwork2 on July 24, 2020, 10:11:54 AM
The narrative over the last ten years has been 'public sector leeches' in most of the UK press so the weird bit was the temporary elevation to clap status.  This is just back to the norm.

I'd have to disagree. The clap status they initially had is a fundamental part of it all. It wasn't to truly show appreciation to the NHS and the workers but it was a chance for the clappers to feel sanctimonious, good about themselves and wipe away any guilt rather than supporting the actual doctors and nurses through lobbying politicians and being happy to take a very minor increase in taxes to fund them.

Similar to what the poppy appeal has become. It all about being seen to support the veterans and troops and feeling good about giving a pound to support vets; rather than pressurising those in power to ensure that  war veterans be given adequate levels of support through public schemes.

Even the great PM who has publicly stated that he doesn't believe in gestures was sure to be seen to be out clapping for all the goodwill to himself that would obtain.

If you don't ask, you won't get. Not all places publicise discounts to students or NHS workers, so it's a reasonable question.

thenoise

Yeah, cheekily asking for a discount is hardly unique to the NHS is it? Nor is having a bit of a whinge after a long shift, for that matter. Worse things happen at sea. Or in a hospital during a pandemic, no doubt.

Thomas

Quote from: thenoise on July 24, 2020, 01:02:19 PM
Yeah, cheekily asking for a discount is hardly unique to the NHS is it? Nor is having a bit of a whinge after a long shift, for that matter. Worse things happen at sea. Or in a hospital during a pandemic, no doubt.

Especially when - as the mysterious anonymous chipshop owner notes - these NHS workers are apparently happy to pay full when you say 'no'.

And as the article itself notes, '[NHS Lothian] added that they had not received any complaints from local businesses.'

Pointless article.

'We can't afford this!!'
'Is anyone demanding that you do it?'
'No. In fact they're quite polite when I explain that I can't.'

aaaaand publish on the BBC homepage under a suggestive headline

thenoise

'Who's been asking for discounts?'

'Well, students, people on benefits, furloughed workers, small business owners with a shakey future, nurses, pensioners, the list is endless really.'

'Ahahahha you said nurses I'm gonna stick it to those bloody leftie nurses' *hastily scribbles article*

Braintree

I think the article is fine. These business are frustrated by the expectations and their own loss of business.  This was always going to be the response from some after not being appreciated for so long. They were treated like heroes and then tossed aside; no more clapping. Who can blame anyone for wanting 10% off their fish supper?

The issue is that these business have nothing, the NHS has nothing so is unable to pay a decent salary so people don't feel they need a discount.

There is a big difference between a small takeaway not offering a discount and a large supermarket chain taking away discounts and key shopping hours when Covid hasn't gone away.


Sebastian Cobb

I suspect the shopping hours and discounts were largely performative.


BlodwynPig

You thought austerity was bad...just wait and see what the next 10 years look like ;0)

bgmnts

Quote from: BlodwynPig on July 24, 2020, 09:40:43 PM
You thought austerity was bad...just wait and see what the next 10 years look like ;0)

I think 10 years will look like now but a bit shit, then all wildlife will die and in 20 years life will look like Blade Runner. Running Man in 30 years.

That bloody Marie Currie that stays down Fairmilehead - she's had 25 free meals during lockdown - I knew it!

QuoteAn Edinburgh fish and chip owner, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: "I had a call from a nurse at a hospital asking for a free meal for her colleagues

To be fair, when you've only got one fish and one chip, it's gonna be stressful when you're asked to feed several folk for nothing.

Dex Sawash

Quote from: Clatty McCutcheon on July 24, 2020, 10:01:45 PM


To be fair, when you've only got one fish and one chip, it's gonna be stressful when you're asked to feed several folk for nothing.

Matthew 14:13-31 modernisation rejected by conclave

BlodwynPig

Quote from: bgmnts on July 24, 2020, 09:47:50 PM
I think 10 years will look like now but a bit shit, then all wildlife will die and in 20 years life will look like Blade Runner. Running Man in 30 years.

If it looks like those two films, I think I could stave off suicide, at least it would be future-retro as fuck!

Zetetic

Wheeeee

Includes the usual:

QuoteLesson 2: bust bureaucracy

That brings me to the second lesson.

Supporting a culture of collaboration and change by busting bureaucracy.

Now, we shouldn't beat ourselves up too much.

The latest OECD data shows that we only spend 2p in the pound on administration in the NHS, compared to, for example, to 6p in France, and 8p in the USA.

But the crisis proved that there's more bureaucracy that our healthcare system can do better without.

That barnacle-like encrustation of rules and regulations.

We do, of course, spend a lot more than 2% on "administration", but thankfully we hide it in the salaries of nurses, doctors and AHPs so while it's 1) really expensive and 2) done by people who should be spending the time on their actual job, it doesn't count.

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

QuoteThat barnacle-like encrustation of rules and regulations.
Yeah a health service definitely doesn't need RULES

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Zetetic on July 31, 2020, 04:51:06 AM
Wheeeee

Includes the usual:

We do, of course, spend a lot more than 2% on "administration", but thankfully we hide it in the salaries of nurses, doctors and AHPs so while it's 1) really expensive and 2) done by people who should be spending the time on their actual job, it doesn't count.

Isn't one of the reasons France and the USA have way more administration costs because there's shitloads of billing to manage thanks to health insurance? I realise France does have free healthcare but I understand it's managed through health insurance policies that are free at the poor end.

Zetetic

Possibly, although don't forget that up until the pandemic (and presumably again after it) that England was still pushing on with the commissioner-provider split and all that, even if this wasn't as involved as insurance-based systems.

Sebastian Cobb

That's more wholesale though isn't it? The fact is, if the tories want to privatise healthcare, then there will be more admin.

That admin's fine though, it's the admin that stops private services cutting costs or taking risks that's the bad kind isn't it?

Zetetic

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on August 04, 2020, 12:48:53 PM
That's more wholesale though isn't it?
There should certainly be less dicking about over individuals, although a good example of how England has tried to introduce individual costing and put the burden onto clinicians is the Mental Health Clustering work.

(As well as being an example of how to produce a completely useless approach to identifying similar groups of patients.)

Zetetic

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on August 04, 2020, 12:48:53 PM
That admin's fine though, it's the admin that stops private services cutting costs or taking risks that's the bad kind isn't it?
Or the kind that gets put onto people who are bad at it because they're trained as doctors, nurses, physios, SALTs or whatever instead of people whose job it is to do admin.

Ghostly Pale

Quote from: thenoise on July 24, 2020, 05:39:25 PM
'Who's been asking for discounts?'

'Well, students, people on benefits, furloughed workers, small business owners with a shakey future, nurses, pensioners, the list is endless really.'

'Ahahahha you said nurses I'm gonna stick it to those bloody leftie nurses' *hastily scribbles article*

If we want to find out what's really going on, we're gonna need to send Helen Pidd down to Twentymans again