DOCTORS in England on Thursday (13) staged the biggest walkout in the history of the UK's state-funded National Health Service, prompting fears for patient safety. The unprecedented five-day stoppage over pay and staff retention is the latest in eight months of industrial action across the NHS, which is already reeling from a vast pandemic backlog.
Healthcare providers in general, but doctors especially have a sense of duty to their patients regardless of work conditions which are often unacceptable for both. One workaround I’ve seen mentioned for doctors in particular is to continue working, but stop making notes in the EHR or submitting billing which tends to get admins attention real quick without impacting patient care.
That sounds a lot like the Japanese transit protests. The lines still ran as normal but they refused to collect payment. Nobody impacted but the transit lines.
That’s a good system. It puts the consequences squarely where they belong, and only where they belong.
Most such tactics are explicitly illegal in the UK, unfortunately. Basically, the legal framework for labour strikes in the UK is set up to maximise inconvenience to the public and minimise the tools (and effectiveness of those tools) available to the workers and their unions.
Healthcare providers in general, but doctors especially have a sense of duty to their patients regardless of work conditions which are often unacceptable for both. One workaround I’ve seen mentioned for doctors in particular is to continue working, but stop making notes in the EHR or submitting billing which tends to get admins attention real quick without impacting patient care.
That sounds a lot like the Japanese transit protests. The lines still ran as normal but they refused to collect payment. Nobody impacted but the transit lines.
That’s a good system. It puts the consequences squarely where they belong, and only where they belong.
Most such tactics are explicitly illegal in the UK, unfortunately. Basically, the legal framework for labour strikes in the UK is set up to maximise inconvenience to the public and minimise the tools (and effectiveness of those tools) available to the workers and their unions.
That’s not by accident either.