“Extended hours saved my life.” Exclusive Not!

An interesting article on the front page of one of the GP rags this week. Clearly a total vindication of Mr Clarkson’s intellectually impaired Caledonian premier’s extended hours Policy for no extra money known as a pay cut. However, we are in hard times, and so comrades these policies are necessary for the war effort.

Whose life has been saved by the all wise Caledonian gentleman’s omnipotent wisdom?

None other than the:

NHS Director-General for Commissioning and System Management

who is one of the officials responsible for extended GP opening hours.

A good Comrade Commissar at a senior level check out his importance here in the Comic.

Our staff are incredibly grateful to him for their lost weekends, early starts and late finishes but then they are not paid as much as he is and so that is all right, comrade.

Now a man of this importance you would expect to be able to organize his life as well as destroy the NHS healthcare system.

He would after all, if he were buying a house, be unable to see a solicitor or an estate agent due to the fact that he “often works 12 hour days”, as he is clearly an important person and for some reason has not mandated extended hours for any other profession. We like the word “often” it can hide many things like “never”.

Time off from being NHS Director-General for Commissioning and System Management to see a GP would clearly lead to disastrous National Consequences.

Something might happen (for the better) comrade.
.
So a disorganised part timer then thinks that a crap policy has saved his pathetic life?
(There are plenty of time management courses available to you full of useful tips like “write things down to remember them”. You might even get a MBA from the NHS University.)

A senior NHS official who would have “brushed concerns about his own health aside had he not been able to make an evening appointment”. No self preservation?

Clearly a true hero of the Soviet Union beyond all others in the Great Patriotic War! A true Comrade Worker!

Clearly a man who cannot look after himself other than on a political whim is the ideal person to be in charge of everyone elses’ healthcare being destroyed by the escalating mushroom cloud of management know as (de)commissioning.

Surely if he started work as a GP at 08.00 hrs and did a 12 hour day he could easily have made a 19.00hrs appointment? However he probably starts his twelve hour days at 06.00hrs so having late opening makes sense if you can believe this Party propaganda.

He made some interesting comments re “the primary and secondary care interface” (sorry re jargon his words) and how he couldn’t get any incontinence pads from his district nurse.

Management bullsh*t (sorry re grunt speak but this is manna from heaven!) is a particularly offensive and smelly discharge especially if you are a patient who experiences its results so this would have been a huge problem for him every time he opened his mouth.

Now for those that work in Northernshire who have “world class commissioning” this would have never have happened.

In Northernshire there are no longer any district nurses or health visitors as the idiot Commissioning Mangers have decided that these are not required in GP practices. If there was a problem with the District Nursing services we as GPs could leave a message on an answer machine and hope something might happen. This is commissioning, sorry world class commissioning, in action as this manager has seen himself.

Following his treatment he has agreed to take part in a “scheme piloting patient reported outcome measures” which will surely mean that the NHS he is destroying will turn out to be even more excellent? After all “manager patients” advising managers how good the NHS is can only lead to one thing?

'Our doctors and nurses are fantastic,' he said.

Yes they are. And if left on their own could do so much more to improve things.

'But we need a new generation of clinical leads who are less tolerant of failure and want to bear down on poor performance.'

More incompetant managers or “world class commissioning”? No "clinical engagement here then"?

If this manager has a problem with any of the services he experienced then he has only one person to blame.

Himself.

Praise be to the Party and its world class decommissioning of anything useful that works. Things will only get worse comrades, ever worse, as now the Comrade Commissar patient has been born. More managers coming our way.