#notsafe #notfair The Junior Contract and the NHS

I am torn between enormous admiration for the Doctors demonstrating their disagreement for the unsafe and unfair Junior contract and horror at the existence of the situation.  Both for the Juniors and the Consultants supporting them.  When the entire Consultant body of a department feels motivated to write this

Big respect to clinical directors & other managers who stand up for their staff @IminworkJeremy pic.twitter.com/vQaVpGlJvo

— nuwan dissanayaka (@nuwandiss) October 27, 2015

We know we are all in trouble.  This should never have developed into an industrial dispute, this is a grown up profession compelled to turn to the language of strike and protest to protect us all.  This is utterly horrifying, dispiriting.  I can only think about it for short periods of time before I think my head may explode so goodness knows what it is like for the Doctors.

As a specialist Radiographer Sonographer I am part of a group actively promoting the advancement and development of a research culture in our profession with the aim of improving patient care and to retain motivated driven people in clinical practice. My recent and now apparently incorrect mantra has been that no one questions Doctors who do research.  Apparently I am wrong and Mr Hunt does question the value of anything which he does not understand as the core function of Doctors. 

I would like to believe that Mr Hunt lacks analytical skills and is unaware that using selected extracts from a paper taken out of context is a big academic no-no in any field but sadly I have to conclude that he knows exactly what he is doing.

One lovely tweet I saw suggested that a suitable Christmas gift for Mr Hunt would be the superb How to Read a Paper by Trisha Greenhalgh  https://twitter.com/trishgreenhalgh He would have plenty of time to get his head round it during his Christmas recess 17^th December – 5^th January.  For more information on when MPs are not sitting follow the link below.....

http://www.parliament.uk/about/faqs/house-of-commons-faqs/business-faq-page/recess-dates/

So, this is very much about Doctors but will soon be about all professional groups in the NHS.  Sonographers are probably safe as Mr Hunt (like most other people) has probably not heard of us and if he has, he has not the faintest clue what we do.

The sentence above should be a joke but it is clear that not having the faintest idea what a professional does is not a barrier to trying to stop them doing it.