why are tories picking on nurses?
 

that's all I hear these days is bad stories about nursing and neglect

I think its unfair on nurses....they are all heroes who do an unbelievably hard job on a lousy wage and increasing pressure and rules and responsibilities

they should be paid double and if they want to know where the blame lies, try the endless admin and middle managers and wasted machinery that never gets used

They are not all heroes. There are some dreadful instances of horrible neglect in the NHS. While cuts make health professionals' jobs harder, the NHS has suffered from decades of neglect from successive governments, so to ask in your title why the Tories are picking on nurses is about a parsec off the target.

Nurses have been getting away with it for too long. I'm glad someone is finally standing up to them and saying "enough is enough". I can't wait till it's fully privatised, and we're all going into bankruptcy for broken legs, like in the states.

If nurses are now having to be taught to "care", and some hospitals are implementing a "no harm" policy, then I'd say that things are seriously *****ed up.

I think both lippy and Livia are right actually.

There are some appalling nurses and practices within the NHS and of course the same is absolutely true of private healthcare systems. In any organisation of that size and scale (or in any deregulated industry of a similar size and scale) there will be good and bad practitioners. That said, I do think many of the changes made by successive governments have exacerbated this.

There are a number of reasons these stories are so prevalent right now. One is just a matter of timing: scandals come to light, committees examine, conclusions are reached and the findings reported on.

It isn't a news item when a hospital works properly and it isn't reported on when patients are well cared for.

The other reason for the prevalence of such stories at the moment (given that this situation has held true across successive governments and is not always in the news to the same degree) is that it is a useful narrative for people looking to privatise large chunks of the health service. There are clear and documented vested interests in this matter within the government.

There is always a flurry of these kinds of stories during times where privatisation is being aggressively pursued.

In much the same way there is always a flurry of stories about failing schools and bad teachers during periods when privatisation or deregulation of schools is being pursued. It happened during the initial and subsequent pushes for academies and free schools.

I suspect the stories are in your face more these days because privatization is what the current government want. There have always been bad nurses..as in any job. Make people think that the majority are bad and you have less opposition to push through your ideologies. See stories about benefit claimants. Its the same. Always hearing about the (minority) bad sides, never hear about the (majority) good.

Of course! ......
It's the same with the police, rubbish them and get a team of crack spin doctors to systematically undermine, defame and chip away at public confidence until the public are baying for blood at these 'underperforming units'.
It's horrific that after years of mismanagement and underfunding the ones who are there caring, treating, risking their own lives and health are the ones who have the blame for failings heaped upon them.
All so the private sector can sneak in through the back door whilst everyones heads are turned, deregulated with shiny brochures but dangerously under educated/trained staff will this will become the new norm....

I would like to see those so quick to criticise nurses do the job themselves. The truth is most have absolutely no idea. The blame lies with government and management who don't provide enough nurses to do the job properly and expect nurses to do the job of two.

Nurses cannot be in two places at once and have to prioritise and give their time to those who are at risk of dying rather than to patients who need to get to the toilet. Nurses are under so much pressure and stressed to the eyeballs - and god help them if they make a mistake under all that pressure.

The problem is if its said enough times people actually start to believe the line they are being spoonfed and end up supporting privatisation of the NHS and the outsourcing of services to private companys only to realise once its too late to go back that it was complete stupidity.

These people that criticise nurses just what are they basing it on? oh yes complete bollocks that they were spoonfed by people trying to soften up public opinion so they could privatise the services in question.

Pssst let me tell you something half of these twats in goverment that badmouth nurses operate as board members and share holders of the private companys that would be in the running to pick up the contracts that would go up to tender once they manage to destroy the reputation of the NHS enough to privatise even more of the NHS than they have already.
These ******s are out for themselves to get rich and transfer public money into their own pockets not to help.

Why do some not see these twats for what they are and what they are doing?

Excellent post, bobnot.

so how do we improve things? did labour bugger things up, despite throwing more money at the nhs? or is that tory spin? are doctors overpaid? why are the a and e's closing down and more innocent people dying ? why are so many machines unused....if as livia says some members fo staff have to be taught to care....why are they even allowed to become healthworkers in the first place?

Pretty much tory spin I'm afraid.

Labour came to power after a decade and a half of tory underfunding of NHS. They didn't 'throw money at it', they increased the funding to a more appropriate level. Things improved greatly in many areas of the NHS. Unfortunately, a lot of the money did not go to frontline care, instead it went into additional layers of management and administration, as well as PFI hospitals.

Can't answer the quesion on care except to say that i believe that really dates back to the previous conservative government's reorganisation of the NHS, in which the system of ward sisters and internally employed porterage, cleaning and catering was lost.

Back then, a cleaner at a hospital was employed by the hospital as a fixed member of staff. They had their assigned wards and areas, and were overseen by hospital employed management under the 'Domestic Services' departments. Under Thatcher's government, this was altered and cleaning services, along with many other aspects of ward management was tendered out to private firms.

previously, everybody who worked on a ward, in whatever capacity was directly answerable to the sister of that ward.

Now, everybody moves about. Nurses included. There is no sense of a ward as a discrete unit within the larger hospital. Hygeine has suffered as has the quality of catering. Nursing care has become a problem in some areas of the service, notably the areas which are most underfunded and understaffed for their needs. The chain of authority has been buggered about with to such an extent that responsibility and line management is often unclear and fragmented.

The culture of wards and departments was fundamentally altered.

Excellent read dana, trying to run the NHS like a business hasn't worked....
Managers running wards with business but no clinical experience are what has led to the failure in patient care.