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By Mental Nurse, on August 30th, 2010
Hate, hate, hate them and their cutting ways. Currently it is easy and only getting easier to find cuts even the NHS Trusts are having difficulty claiming as efficiency savings. Here is one example that popped up.
Unanimous plea to save Avondale
Politicians have called for regulators to step in and review the decision-making process which led to the planned closure of a Preston mental health unit.
A series of impassioned pleas from Preston councillors ended with a unanimous vote in favour of supporting the campaign to save the Avondale Unit, based at the Royal Preston Hospital.
After writing about NIMBY politicians recently it is nice to see some of them trying to do the right thing.
For some time it is going to be very, very easy to find things like this and decry them. Sadly we know it is likely to make any difference. Public oncsultations only exist to tell us what has been decided and if things are bad this year they are only going to get worse next year.
So what do we do?
Continue reading Cutters!
By Mental Nurse, on July 20th, 2010
I was trying to search the newspaper sites for rubbish about mental health and complementary therapies we could all take the fun out of. Sadly the terribly awful newspaper search engines are giving me a headache and taking all the fun out of it. Then I remembered reading something about the great idea by David Cameron. So here it is:
Your Freedom.
This website is designed to allow as many people in the UK as possible to put forward their ideas on what laws and regulations we should do away with. Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, along with the rest of the Coalition Government, invite you to collaborate on ideas for freedom and change.
This will form an important part of our commitment to cutting red tape, repealing unnecessary laws and supporting civil liberties. Your ideas will inform initiatives such as the proposed Freedom Bill and the streamlining of regulation, particularly for businesses and other organisations.
Fighting the urge to suggest something involving the alien menace amongst us (1) I thought I better type in mental health and possibly later nursing.
Continue reading Your Freedom To Say What You Want
By Mental Nurse, on July 17th, 2010
Well I was planning on a post to do with complementary therapies and mental health but Z beat me to it. So I had to think of something else. My backup plan was to do something political but I can feel the rage building at the thought of it and other bloggers mentioned in TWIM have done a far better job of it.
So it will have to be a petty whiny post about the idiots I have to work with.
Hate them sometimes.
Really.
Continue reading Worse Than The Patients They Are
By zarathustra, on July 2nd, 2010
[Guest post by Tom Pollard, Policy and Campaigns Assistant for Mind]
A quick check of the media coverage would lead anyone to believe that welfare spending is squandered on ‘cheats’ and ‘scroungers’. The suggestion is that slashing this corner of the budget will not hurt anyone honest, whereas cuts in other departments will hit decent working folk. The more that can be carved out of the £192bn that is spent on welfare each year, the less painful the cuts in other departments will be.
As it happens, disability benefits only make up a small proportion of welfare, as a closer look at Government spending will show you. But let’s put that aside for now and consider the essence of the Government’s plans: that many people on Incapacity Benefit could and should go back to work.
Continue reading Incapacity Benefit reform – help or hindrance?
By Mental Nurse, on June 29th, 2010
This got sent to my real life email today.
No opt-out: nurses told of ‘moral duty’ to save money
Nurses have been told how to fulfil their “professional and moral responsibility” to help the NHS cut waste and save money, in comprehensive guidance shared exclusively with Nursing Times.
The 260-page document has been published to show nurses how they can implement and measure the eight “high impact actions” aimed at saving more than £9bn.
The document, linked to from the original story, is a monstrous 39 meg file. It seems to be supported by everyone, except Unison and is on my reading list for tonight.
Now I never thought I was allowed to Opt Out of trying to do my bit to provide a cost effective service. Which is a shame as this document seems to be implying that is exactly what I was meant to be doing.
But my professional and moral responsibility to be cost effective. What?
Continue reading I Feel His Spirit Upon Me Now
By Mental Nurse, on June 14th, 2010
I am not a great reader of blogs. Over the course of the election though I did tend to follow two regularly to try and give me a selection of viewpoints;
Liberal Conspiracy: A leftward leaning group blogwhich is a bit whiny but generally interesting.
and,
Guy Fawkes’ Blog: A right wing version of Speak Your Branes by someone who can spell a bit and has a fine grasp of satire.
I do blame LC for convincing me to vote Lib Dem and making me feel to blame for everything that will ensure over the next several years and Thatcher rips off her Cameron suit and regains power.
I am not sure if I am being whiny and petty here but I came across a post that annoyed me. Quite a lot.
Continue reading Inappropriate Use Of Mentalist
By oldschoolbaby, on May 14th, 2010
[OSB has asked me to post this. I have yet to actually read the whole thing as currently my real life is running out of control so here it is. Please remember the previous post is about general discussion of banning and moderation. I do have more to say but will say it to OSB - Mental]
Well, it’s been a bit of a journey. Has it been five years ? I’m not sure. Hundreds of thousands of words, I have wondered whether it was even a million ( and all in an extremely laborious one finger fashion ). Strange behaviour for someone like me who, to paraphrase the advert, really, really isn’t a PC. Of course I had an agenda. The advent of blogging passed me by just as the advent of facebook and the like have completely passed me by. I only became aware of blogs when PC Copperfield’s was serialised in the paper ( yes, yes the Daily Mail ). Copperfield railed against the political correctness, risk averse cultures, bureaucracy and miscellaneous stupidities effectively crippling him in his endeavours to carry out his policing duties. The resulting furore, during which he was persecuted by management, resulted in questions being asked in the House of Commons. In true Labour style Copperfield was damned as a fantasist by Tony McNulty, a Junior Minister at the Home Office. Inevitably, what goes around comes around. The expenses scandal revealed the true measure of McNulty. From there I latched on to other police and teaching blogs with a similar message. Lord knows I’ve had my differences with Dr Crippen but even he had a reasonable idea of where the NHS was going wrong. I was hooked and inspired. I didn’t have the time, number of posts in my head nor the technical know how to start my own blog so I latched on to MN
Quite obviously my attempts to align this site with other anti government blogs have been a spectacular failure. I’ve no regrets though. It’s no secret that the national debt has spiralled, possibly out of all control, in the last 5 years. We will never know whether things would have been different if the government had taken heed of the likes of Copperfield, Inspector Gadget, Frank Chalk and Crippen
Continue reading GOODBYE TO ALL THAT
By zarathustra, on May 3rd, 2010
Those of you who’ve seen our recent This Election in Mentalists series may have noticed a glaring omission. We’ve covered the mental health election pledges of the Tories, Labour, Lib Dems, the Greens, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party….but haven’t said anything about the Northern Ireland parties.
As it happens, Confessions of a [...]
By zarathustra, on April 20th, 2010
In the final instalment of our look at mental health manifesto pledges, we’ll look at the Green Party. Also, for those of us living west of Offa’s Dyke and north of Hadrian’s Wall, a peek at Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party.
I’ll also conclude by doing a quick comparison of the parties and deciding who I think are the best and worst on mental health.
Continue reading This Election in Mentalists (3): Greens, Plaid Cymru, SNP
By zarathustra, on April 18th, 2010
I’m a bit delayed in doing the third instalment of the This Election in Mentalists series, mainly because the Scottish National Party still haven’t published their manifesto yet. Not exactly inspiring confidence in their claim that Scotland would be more efficiently-run if they were left to govern it.
So, in the meantime, let’s have [...]
By zarathustra, on April 14th, 2010
Round two of our look at the mental health pledges of the respective political parties. Yesterday we did Labour and Tories. Today it’s geography teachers and retired colonels. Or, to put it another way, the Lib Dems and UKIP.
Continue reading This Election in Mentalists (2): Lib Dems and UKIP
By zarathustra, on April 13th, 2010
Given the vigorous debate sparked off on this blog by the election, perhaps it might be worth looking at what the various parties have to say about mental health issues.
Because, of course, all of us on this blog are rampantly monomaniac single-issue voters who have no interest in the economy, Afghanistan, physical health issues, defence, immigration, crime…or indeed anything outside our own narrow frame of reference.
I’ll split this up into three separate blog posts over a couple of days. This first one will look at the Labour and Tory manifestos. The second will focus on the Lib Dems and UKIP. Finally there’ll be a third post on the comedy smaller parties.
Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin…
Continue reading This Election in Mentalists (1): Labour and Tories
By zarathustra, on January 25th, 2010
Following on from yesterday’s post about Nurses for Reform, today I did a little rant over on Liberal Conspiracy, specifically focusing on Dr Helen Evans’ deeply offensive insinuation that the NHS is founded on Nazi principles.
The Liberal Conspiracy post seems to have generated quite a bit of Twitter traffic. It’s been tweeted by [...]
By zarathustra, on January 24th, 2010
Thanks to Mental in his last post for pointing out the group Nurses for Reform, who I hadn’t heard of before – but I’ve had fun finding out.
As Mental says, their spokesperson Dr Helen Evans has recently been in the Nursing Times, after suggesting to David Cameron that nurses could create their own brands.
Dr Evans saw this as a natural extension of consumer culture, as the public made more active decisions about the airlines they flew with and the cars they bought.
She said: “Hospitals could advertise that they only used “x brand” nurses.
“As people behave like consumers the good brands will come to the top and the poorer brands will either close or be taken over.”
Got that? None of yer manky Tesco nurses working in our hospital. We only use Sainsburys nurses.
I thought about this idea, weighed up its merits, and after recovering from the two-hour fit of convulsing, hysterical laughter, I decided to learn more about Nurses for Reform.
Continue reading Nurses for Reform – Who They?
By Mental Nurse, on December 9th, 2009
I will post post this without much comment. This is about the pre-budget report.
The RCN wails and whines for money in these difficult times. “Please do not slash the funding for one of the biggest money sinks in the country”.
RCN calls for sustained NHS investment ahead of pre-budget report
Ahead of this week’s Pre-Budget report, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) today (7 Dec) called for sustained NHS investment to ensure a first class health care system that delivers the highest level of care to patients.
Dr Peter Carter, RCN Chief Executive & General Secretary said:
“Sustained investment in frontline services is needed to ensure patients receive safe, high quality care. While it is good news that the economy seems to be starting to recover, it would be detrimental for spending on health to be cut as has happened following previous recessions. The demand on the health service has never been greater, and will continue to increase in the coming years. To avoid taking a step backwards, the Government must invest in a skilled workforce, effective regulation, high standards of education, and the best, up-to-date equipment.”
Right then.
Continue reading Well, Gosh, This Is A Shock
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