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Political Compass

leedswolf said:
I got that. I haven't a clue about your point in your specific post that I replied to.
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Again apologies I assumed it was a response to my saying doctors only get a short 4 years of fuck arounds where they are likely to be doing hours outside the wtd and then when qualified get good reward for their endeavours.

Paddington argued that doctorss and nurses basically had no choice but to work outside the wtd. I called bullshit. We disagreed.
 
And you really do demonstrate EXACTLY in that post that you really don't have a bloody clue how it works.

Nobody is in the Health Service for the money. NOBODY.
 
Paddingtonwolf said:
ffs. Don't accuse me of not debating when you are deliberately avoiding the post I made that answers your point. Casualty Nurses were TOLD to opt out or the SERVICE would suffer. So your bleating and money point is completely shot. I know because I just asked someone who had to sign the forms at the time.
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So the whole service was told to opt out!

I am still calling bullshit!

I need more than one anecdote. If that's true we should be rioting in the streets.

No union worth its salt should allow its members to be working over 48 hours a week over a 17 week period voluntarily signing away their rights and safeguards. Its madness
 
Paddingtonwolf said:
And you really do demonstrate EXACTLY in that post that you really don't have a bloody clue how it works.

Nobody is in the Health Service for the money. NOBODY.
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That's like saying all police officers do the job just to catch bad people and that too would be horse shit.
 
You aren't putting it to bed at all.

I know the situation. My wife was a casualty nurse. You don't just bloody stop. It is absolute shite.
 
You can opt out of the 48 hour weekly limit if you agree this with your employer in writing. The decision to exercise the opt-out option is an individual and voluntary one and there should be no pressure placed on you to take the option. Any agreement may also relate to a specified period or may apply indefinitely. If you make the agreement and then wish to end the agreement, you must give written notice to your employer.

That is STRAIGHT from the RCN Handbook. And it just didn't happen. Huge pressure was brought to bear. And still is now. Because you don't leave an underfunded service short staffed and let patients die - you go in and you work the extra. As I have said regularly on here I find your implication that nurses were taking the extra shifts for money a fucking disgrace, inaccurate and something you should take back if you had any fucking backbone at all.
 
Paddingtonwolf said:
You can opt out of the 48 hour weekly limit if you agree this with your employer in writing. The decision to exercise the opt-out option is an individual and voluntary one and there should be no pressure placed on you to take the option. Any agreement may also relate to a specified period or may apply indefinitely. If you make the agreement and then wish to end the agreement, you must give written notice to your employer.

That is STRAIGHT from the RCN Handbook. And it just didn't happen. Huge pressure was brought to bear. And still is now. Because you don't leave an underfunded service short staffed and let patients die - you go in and you work the extra. As I have said regularly on here I find your implication that nurses were taking the extra shifts for money a $#@!ing disgrace, inaccurate and something you should take back if you had any $#@!ing backbone at all.
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Nothing to do with my backbone.

I am amazed that, given your stance on the system, you are not advocating the government introduced special nurses like special constables who are also unpaid and do the job purely for love.

Of course they don't do it for love. The met require you to be a special before joining full time as it saves money training. Some people become a special as a taster. Some to give back.

However once in, myself and many many many of my colleagues volunteered for extra shifts on days off. Not to catch bad people but to make money. That included two long prison officer disputes. Now I am not disputing that police ,nurses, fire, ambulance do what they do out of some desire to help solve or sense of community. However I do dispute that even an under funded NHS relies solely on the goodwill of staff to function and that those same staff who volunteer for extra shifts via bank nursing or similar are volunteering , just like I did, to make extra money primarily. Once there on overtime you do your job. Opting out of the wtd is not and was never a pre requisite of a nurses role.

So no, not taking it back
 
Fine. Whatever.

I cannot be arsed to waste my time debating this with you as you are clearly not prepared to even consider bending from your utterly wrong, myopic, and frankly idiotically mis-informed view. But that's fine.
 
Paddingtonwolf said:
Fine. Whatever.

I cannot be arsed to waste my time debating this with you as you are clearly not prepared to even consider bending from your utterly wrong, myopic, and frankly idiotically mis-informed view. But that's fine.
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Why do we work? Primarily to make enough money for food clothes and a roof

Why do we choose a career? We want to do something that we are happy doing for a long part of our lives.

Paddington you are a good example. You have stated on here that you are moving from one type of lawyering to something else now you can afford it (I believe that was the jist)

I admire your passion. I admire your support of the nurses. But to convince me they are all being railroaded to work outside of the directive designed to safeguard them needs more evidence sorry.
 
So I've watched this with a little bemusement and I thought long about replying. I'm quite sure no offence was intended towards nurses like me who actually loved their colleagues and in some cases their patients so much that that the WTD was a tricky thing to negotiate - and yes when I worked in A&E we were actively encouraged to opt out because otherwise the unit could not have functioned. The additional pay was almost always lost to tax as the hospital classed it as second income. In addition, if we didn't do the additional hours we ended up with some bank nurse who didn't know the ropes and who none of us had time to babysit on a 12 hour shift and who could easily harm someone inadvertently in a high stress situation (it happens more than you think). When there are two qualified and a HCSW on a shift with 28 patients on a main ward you aren't there for the money... because no amount of cash would compensate you for what you go through. I genuinely did have the back of my nursing colleagues and perhaps we were unusual in that I know each and every single one of them would have done the same for me either because we were a team or because they needed the money. Do I know their motivation was the same as mine? No I do not. Do you know my motivation was solely to do with money? No you do not. It is never as black and white as the polarised arguments would like you to believe. The fact is we WERE encouraged to opt out, yes the union knew. Was it ideal? No. Was the alternative desirable at a time when depts were closing down left and right? No. As ever, context is everything.
 
Paddingtonwolf said:
The WTD basically doesn't exist in the NHS.
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Yes you did


And this "Plus, on checking with my wife who was a casualty nurse for many years, all casualty staff were encouraged to opt out "or the SERVICE will suffer".
 
Squeeze said:
So I've watched this with a little bemusement and I thought long about replying. I'm quite sure no offence was intended towards nurses like me who actually loved their colleagues and in some cases their patients so much that that the WTD was a tricky thing to negotiate - and yes when I worked in A&E we were actively encouraged to opt out because otherwise the unit could not have functioned. The additional pay was almost always lost to tax as the hospital classed it as second income. In addition, if we didn't do the additional hours we ended up with some bank nurse who didn't know the ropes and who none of us had time to babysit on a 12 hour shift and who could easily harm someone inadvertently in a high stress situation (it happens more than you think). When there are two qualified and a HCSW on a shift with 28 patients on a main ward you aren't there for the money... because no amount of cash would compensate you for what you go through. I genuinely did have the back of my nursing colleagues and perhaps we were unusual in that I know each and every single one of them would have done the same for me either because we were a team or because they needed the money. Do I know their motivation was the same as mine? No I do not. Do you know my motivation was solely to do with money? No you do not. It is never as black and white as the polarised arguments would like you to believe. The fact is we WERE encouraged to opt out, yes the union knew. Was it ideal? No. Was the alternative desirable at a time when depts were closing down left and right? No. As ever, context is everything.
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Now that's an answer. I get that completely. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. But did you end up working more than 48 hours a week over 17 weeks?

Next time wrestle the computer out of his sweaty palms sooner.
 
Cyber-_-man said:
Now that's an answer. I get that completely. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. But did you end up working more than 48 hours a week over 17 weeks?

Next time wrestle the computer out of his sweaty palms sooner.
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The answer is yes - on regular occasions over a 4 years period I did, we famously worked 7x12 hours on night shifts and were supposed to have a week off after that but it never worked out that way. It was the same for the doctors we worked with. Sickness absence through stress was very high in A&E and given the choice you would do the extra hours because you didn't know if you would need the extra bodies yourself the following week. They (the Drs) were protected by derogation, we weren't - but it happened - and like a lot of things in the NHS it was kept very quiet until matters improved and we got more staff.

I can't imagine we were that unusual, I expect it happened a lot in London hospitals where attracting staff is an issue. Although what their stance was/is on WTD I cannot say.
As for my husband, well I believe in freedom of speech as I know you do too so I defend his right to his opinion and as I am an independent sort of woman I am using my own machine :)
 
Police officers work to police regulations rather than employment law so have a number of restrictions on them such as being involved in politics or living in a pub. What that does mean is that if one shift was short , others from different shifts were brought in on overtime to cover or had their day off canceled with notice to cover. Either way you did not need to babysit as squeeze puts it in her post, because they were familiar with everything.

As a chief inspector I logged my hours. I never exceeded the wtd. Even if I had several back to back 12 hour shifts 48 hour average over 17 weeks would have been some going. I can only think detectives on serious investigations would do that or stand a chance of doing that.
 
The vast majority of staff in the NHS do not opt out of the working time directive. In some areas it is likely that some pressure was applied to opt out but as it is an offence to victimise people for opting out if that pressure was too acute you would have expected a large number of Employment Tribunals to that effect, there have not been.

The maximum number of hours over a reference period (6 months for doctors, 17 weeks for others) and other mechanisms in place that bring the average down over the reference period means that most NHS staff do not need to opt out. While it is more likely that some doctors and some nurses will excercise their right to opt out, there are 10s of 1000s if staff in the NHS who are neither doctors or nurses or if they are don't need or wish to opt out.
 
Squeeze said:
The answer is yes - on regular occasions over a 4 years period I did, we famously worked 7x12 hours on night shifts and were supposed to have a week off after that but it never worked out that way. It was the same for the doctors we worked with. Sickness absence through stress was very high in A&E and given the choice you would do the extra hours because you didn't know if you would need the extra bodies yourself the following week. They (the Drs) were protected by derogation, we weren't - but it happened - and like a lot of things in the NHS it was kept very quiet until matters improved and we got more staff.

I can't imagine we were that unusual, I expect it happened a lot in London hospitals where attracting staff is an issue. Although what their stance was/is on WTD I cannot say.
As for my husband, well I believe in freedom of speech as I know you do too so I defend his right to his opinion and as I am an independent sort of woman I am using my own machine :)
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It was a metaphorical switch of the computer! I only spar with Paddington when he calls me an idiot, stupid or myopic without substance. I find your facts abhorrent. It is exactly what the wtd was designed to ensure did not happen. Your unions should be ashamed for allowing this to ever occur on any scale in any hospital.

You are correct about context.

Why the hell are the unions not making more of this? We just don't know the facts if its kept quiet! I am struggling to find other examples.

What can be done to improve it? Reduce the numbers to a and e? How?
 
Cyber-_-man said:
It was a metaphorical switch of the computer! I only spar with Paddington when he calls me an idiot, stupid or myopic without substance. I find your facts abhorrent. It is exactly what the wtd was designed to ensure did not happen. Your unions should be ashamed for allowing this to ever occur on any scale in any hospital.

You are correct about context.

Why the hell are the unions not making more of this? We just don't know the facts if its kept quiet! I am struggling to find other examples.

What can be done to improve it? Reduce the numbers to a and e? How?
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The working time regulations are individual rights therefore only the individual employee can make a claim for any breach of WTD. The WTD gives the individual the right to opt out, there is no mechanism for collective opt out negotiated by the unions.

You clearly have a warped view of what unions can do. Unions do not fund the NHS, do not employ nurses or doctors, do not run hospitals or make decisions about staffing. The unions, via the TUC, have a long standing policy of campaigning to remove the opt out which but as it is legislation it requires those responsible for the legislation to change it to remove the opt out.

So the unions didn't set the opt out, they don't agree with the opt out, don't fund the NHS, don't make decisions on staffing levels, can't prevent individuals from opting out and can't change the law...but they should be ashamed? Sounds like a poor attempt at deflecting the blame for the opportunity to do a little bit of union bashing.
 
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