The less evidence there is that homeopathy works, the more effective it is.

It has been an interesting November for the health service in England.  This post is to deal with the Junior Doctors strike that has just been averted, the deficit and also nursing issues all of which are important.  If you get bored and do not want to read this, just scroll down to the pictures.

Jeremy Hunt has managed to convince Junior Doctors that they need to go on strike over the NHS contract in England that they are convinced is not safe for patients and not fair for doctors.  This is both with the issue of the removal of protection to stop doctors working too hard and payments for antisocial hours being cut (in addition to a redefinition of what antisocial hours are).  In addition to this, he had refused the offer of arbitration on these issues (though he did finally agree to this, as well as suspending his threat of imposition of the contract).

In addition to this, hospitals in England are running up huge deficits.  Part of this is due to the reduction in payments that they get for seeing patients, and part is due to the huge pressures that austerity is causing.  When councils have to cut social services, patients suffer, and if those patients are in hospital, they can not be discharged to an environment that is felt to be too unsafe (before anyone takes offence at this, the only place where someone is not at risk is in the afterlife).  Some have argued that this just shows how inefficient the NHS is, but they forget one big thing.  Circle, a private company had the contract to run Hinchingrooke hospital, and gave it back.  Although may may site the CQC reviews, other point out that it just was not profitable due to the huge pressures in A&E.

Now the government have stated that they want this to change, and in order to do this, more care is to be provided in the community, but a big problem in providing this is that GP surgeries are understaffed.  Loads have vacancies for partners to join them, much more than was the case in 2010.  Although the government has stated that they are going to change this, no sign of this has been noted.  More doctors are leaving salaried jobs in general practice as many are leaving partnership, basically as they are able to earn more money for less work elsewhere.

This issue with a shortage of doctors is not just seen in General Practice, but also in hospital specialities such as psychiatry and also in Emergency Medicine, the speciality that is thought to be the most affected by changes in the NHS contract in England.

And the NHS is not just facing a shortage of doctors.  Many hospitals do not have the nurses available that they need to provide a good standard of care.  So the government, in their wisdom, are to remove the bursaries that nursing students get.  The argument is that the courses are in huge demand and lots of people are turned down.  However this does not look at the issue that people are leaving nursing.  And why should they stay?  They have had pay rises frozen before and loads have left to become agency nurses rather than work harder for less pay in the NHS.   Worse, restrictions on pay both those that have been in place in the past for nurses within the NHS, but also the planned ones for agency staff run the risk of reducing the numbers from abroad that we need to fill the vacancies that are present.

Jeremy Hunt himself, in addition to telling everyone that Everything is Awesome, has endeared himself to NHS staff by taking his children to A&E as his GP was closed rather than contacting the out of hours service and lately, stating that mortality (i.e. death) rates are greater on weekends.  It is not.  (While you are more likely to die if admitted on a weekend, the day you are most likely to die on is a Wednesday.)

So, NHS staff have been leaving before 2010, but more have left since then, and while the Conservatives have said that they are going to give the NHS more money, they have stated that they have done so before, and yet the cuts, sorry, efficiency savings, continue...

I've just taken up speed reading. Last night I did war and peace in 20 seconds. I know it's only 3 words but it's a start!

Not much to say today, other than my children make me very proud.  It is not that just that they are amazing, but it is that they will try (unless tired) even when deep down, they are terrified.  But like all, or rather most parents (not my father for example) my kids make me glow with pride all the time as I am biased towards them.

In other news, I am getting excited over Star Wars and on Sky, there are two shows that the children and I are watching.  Star Wars Rebels and Lego Star Wars, Droid Tales.  I have been told by them that I am not allowed to watch it at midnight, but I am going to do my best to get them to let me.  I will try guilt as when a child, I was taken to watch the original film, then Return of the Jedi, missing out Empire Strikes Back, something as a child was devastating.  If I keep mentioning that...

And last of all, I have promised to start cycling.  I am hoping to do it before New Years as it was one of my aims.  But I have now bought a new bicycle pump which means that I have one less excuse!

Christianity: One woman's lie about having an affair that got seriously out of hand

 I have been very mean to the family in the last few days.  On Friday, due to various reasons, I got into a temper.  It meant that at work, I was not really in the mood to talk to anyone over the argument that happened at home.  The thing was that it was over a silly thing, but once I got into my mood, I just got worse and worse.  And while I may have possibly been justified in getting annoyed in the first place, there was not reason for me to stay annoyed and take it out on everyone, let alone leave the house in a foul mood that stayed until I returned.  Fortunately, my family are far nicer than I am and let me off.

And today, I swore a bit after hearing the Arsenal score.  I do my best not to know the score before watching Match of the Day, but I found out.  And to make matters worse, again, I was a moron and snapped at my amazing wife.  I owe her lots as she has been wonderful to me (as always) today.  Watching the game, it was great to see Arsenal score first, but injuries were not kind to us today (again) and the two goals to follow were painful to watch.  Still, I have stated that I did not think that we can maintain the challenge with the injuries that we have had.

The picture was taken today when I was in London on a course.  It was a bit cloudy on the way there, well it was raining and appeared that it was to be a miserable day but the course was great, one of those teaching was truly excellent and I learned a lot which I hope to put to good use.  Once out, so was the sun, not for as long as I would have liked, but as you can see, I felt is was a truly beautiful day.  The only downside was that I did not get to go to Borough Market for lunch, though the meal provided at Glaziers Hall, where the course was held was great.


And once again, good night.

Guy walks into my parts store. Says that he needs a gas cap for a Lancia, I said, okay, sounds like a fair trade

When it comes to what has happened on Friday the 13th the most important thing has been teaching the children that all Muslims are not terrorists.  It is easier for me, for I lived in London when the IRA was attacking it, as well as when Far Right terror attacks occurred.  And for those who have not noted this elsewhere, I live in Colchester, again a target for the IRA in the past.  I do not consider all Catholics or all the Irish to be terrorists and why should I when almost all are not.  Just like with Muslims.

At times, while people blame Islam for the actions of Unislamic State, they forget that most of the people that Unislamic State murder are Muslims, and that most of those who fight against them are other Muslims.  While some may blame the attacks on the actions of France against Unislamic State, they forget that France has been the victim of terrorism before this back in 1995 and since.  And of course, there have been the attacks just before and since.

But to the family and the picture.  Last weekend we got to take part in a car race.  Well, my daughter did not, but she had loads of fun racing the cars anyway.  I got to race against my wife, and although I beat her, I was very unsportsman like in my victory celebrations.  All in all, a great night and one that we enjoyed loads.  Anyway, it is late and I have to go to bed.  Good night!

An abstract painting sold for £16million at Sotheby's yesterday. When asked what the picture represented, the artist replied, "How a fool and his money are soon parted."

Today was a nice day.  As normal, I was doing the school run and decided to see how good the kids were with reading by getting them to read from the Newsround website.  I have to say, they hate it, but one good thing is that they get to follow up what is happening in the world as well as letting me know how much they know, and do not know about things.  So today, they read about Minecraft, Taylor Swift and also a bit about space.  In addition to this, the morning was spent on an impromptu science lesson and then some YouTube videos, some of which they liked, others they also hated.  But, overall, they did remember some of the things that they were taught, and as some of the stuff was on space, a topic my daughter is learning about, this hopefully will be useful in school.

After work, picking up the children, they wanted to be able to walk home.  This was a conversation that we had from when they saw one of the kids walking home (she was met by her mother).  When I

was that young, I was walking my brother to and from school so, when near home, I pulled over and let them walk the rest of the way home.  It was scary but they both loved it.  I have to admit that I am not sure I would do the same again next week though I am certain they will want me to let them.  One thing I did get them to do was to read bits of this blog, the parts about them.  These memories are important to me for I do like reading them, and you never know, they might like them as well in the future!

An increasingly warped sense of humour could be an early warning sign of impending dementia, say UK experts. I am doomed, but at least I will not remember that!

Today I had a moment of fame!  Not really, but I got to speak at the Colchester Labour Party meeting.  It did not go as well as I would have liked, but that was because I got stage fright and forgot to speak loudly and clearly.

What I did mention were the issues with the numbers of GP's being present in the NHS working in partnership, the issues with nursing numbers, the recruitment issues facing the NHS and of course the exodus of doctors to other countries, not counting the effect that the Junior Contract is to have on those who are leaving the UK or other countries.  Pay has been mentioned in the media as an issue, this being by the Daily Malicious and I did point out that doctors can earn more for less work abroad, and that more are doing so.  I mentioned the issues with NHS pay and how staff have left the NHS as a result to work as agency staff and of course the issues that I had with PMQ's as mentioned before in this blog.  In addition to this, I did talk about what happened in the past to working hours when the safeguards on junior doctor working hours (that the government want to remove) were not present, i.e. that they were ignored.  While the contract is not going to bring back the 24 (and more) shifts of the past, it will probably result in doctors working longer than they are now as the protections that were put in place in the past to prevent this are to be removed.

I did forget to mention how GP workload has been increasing and how since 2010 that this has become unbearable for many.  And someone else mentioned the huge deficits that many NHS hospitals are facing.  Also, I did not mention privatisation and the NHS.  Technically, the district nursing service in North East Essex is provided by a private company, this being Anglian Community Enterprise though unlike the way Serco managed services in Suffolk.  And while many have concerns that the NHS is being run down to be privatised, those who have concerns like that forget that the NHS is so underfunded and has so much issues with staffing that private companies have handed back contracts as even they can not run a service in the current NHS financial climate, this being in general practice as well as with Hinchingbrooke, the hospital run by Circle.  Loads of NHS services have been run by NHS organisations, this including NHS 111.

The bottom line is that while the NHS in some ways is not as bad as it was in 1997 with hospitals needing building work and long waiting lists, in other ways it is so much worse, this being the numbers of staff not working directly for the NHS (but as they are registered with the GMC, NMC and other professional bodies, the government counts them) as well as the financial state of the NHS.

It was a shame that I was not as coherent as I would like, but I am going to claim that it was late and that I was tired!  Hopefully these videos will both entertain and educate.

Call Of Duty, certificate 18. Join the army at 16, get a couple years practice.

It was great being with the children today.  But today is the last of my few days off.  My wife and I used it to spend the day shopping and we went to Bluewater.  We had a great meal in Carluccio's, good food, and great service, and bought things to eat at Christmas.  It was great to spend the day together, as while we love our children more that we could ever imagine, at times it is nice to have time together.

I got to pick the up from school and to then take them swimming.  And compared to the last time I took them, they are doing so well!  I am lucky as not all fathers get to spend time doing this.  A trip to Beavers for my son later and then a drive home with the children.  Not much else to say today as I am going to have to get ready for bed.

I hope you like these songs from the X-factor.  I did.