Plain talking and more of the same

"If you agree with the CBI then you are in the minority, and I would suggest that you look at the underlying motives. Alliance Boots was in fact taken over this year by none other than KKR. It is therefore a strange coincidence that Labour peer Lord Hollick is an adviser to KKR, while the Labour party has received several rather large donations from such private equity firms. These are the very same private equity firms that seem to enjoy profiting from stealing peoples pensions. I am more than a little suspicious that these people do not intend to plough money into health care to provide a better service for patients, I suspect that they want to get their greedy mits on some more easy money and that the government is only too willing to oblige.

If these corrupt profiteers get their way then it will only be bad news for patients. British General Practice is actually a remarkably high quality service that comes at a relatively low cost, one of the things that makes it so precious is the continuity of care that it provides. This will be lost if this short sighted privatising agenda is allowed to continue, catalysed by dishonest pretences at consultation by the illiterate Alan Johnson and the malignant Labour crony Ara Darzi. These big businesses do not care one jot for their workers' health or well being, they are simply intent upon fleecing the tax payer by uniting with a corrupt Labour government that has come to represent the exact opposite of what the Labour party should stand for. Depressingly the way it is going, I fear for the future of British General Practice, and it will not be possible to recreate the brilliant concept of the local doctor who actually knows you when it has been ruthlessly destroyed by this Brownite dictatorship. All we will be able to say is 'I told you so'.

Dr Rant spells how exactly how disingenuous the government in combination with the CBI are being in their drive to privatise primary care. The damage that could potentially be done to the continuity of patient care is very worrying. Dr Grumble has reproduced an excellent piece by Dr Clive Peedell here, it sums up very well just how good we currently have it with General Practice in the UK.

Meanwhile Dr Grumble has saliently pointed out a rather alarming statistic to say the least. Our government is wasting 18 billion pounds a year on centralised budgets, not a small amount in any one's book.

I have also been reliably informed that the lame MTAS format is to be given a kiss of life by the politically correct idiots who seem intent upon destroying the medical profession. Students are to be selected for their first jobs, 'Foundation' year jobs, by using the same 'white space' questions; 'white space' can be translated into 'meaningless waffle' for those in the know. Apparently over half of the marks used for selection will be in the form of this manure maker's fantasy, while the rest of the marks are made up of the student's performance at medical school. Unfortunately this process is so dumb that all medical schools are treated as complete equals, despite the fact that students are rather more able and bright on average at the medical schools with the most competitive entries. This selection process appears nothing more than a cruel joke on medical students.

As if it wasn't bad enough for junior doctors already, having had to endure MTAS 2007, it appears the slide continues. The dumbing down of training gathers apace as Foundation jobs are made up of more and more attachments in which trainees gather no clinical experience. The 'Connecting for Health' Foundation jobs are just one example of this poorly thought out training system, there are many other examples of this around the country with trainees being sent out to work in PCTs for months instead of learning the basic bread and butter. I am sure this system will be good at producing more incompetent self important political medics like Sir Liam Donaldson, people who are so detached from the coal face in their comfy padded chairs that they are completely incapable of doing anything of use. In this way the NHS' cohort of medico political drones will be enlarged, as the emphasis is moved from clinical excellence towards political expedience.