Trusts have been told that they must do more to ensure that staff have the winter flu vaccine in order to protect vulnerable patients and reduce staff sickness.
Currently the take-up rate is poor, with 50% of NHS workers inoculated each year. The target is closer to 75%.What are you going to do, make it a condition of employment? Good luck getting that one through the unions!
You'd have better luck with a team of wildlife vets with dart guns stationed in the hospital car park...
"Good shot! That's the Pediatrics Ward all done now. Just Oncology to go.."
Stevens said it was time for the NHS in England, which employs 1.3 million people, “to practise what it preaches” and cut the £2.4bn-a-year cost of staff absences.
“A good place to start is by tackling the sources of staff sickness absence, including mental health and musculoskeletal injuries, while doing our bit to end the nation’s obesity epidemic by ditching junk food and sugary drinks in place of tasty, healthy and affordable alternatives,” he said.But what the staff eat is up to them. Just as whether they have the flu vaccine is up to them.
You can ditch junk food in hospital cafes and vending machines all you want, but you can't stop Nurse Mubenga ordering a double portion of fried chicken and chips to eat on the bus home...
David Haslam, who chairs the National Obesity Forum, which campaigns on the issue, praised Stevens but warned that “initiatives proposed by the government, the Department of Health and the NHS to help tackle obesity have been crashing down like waves on a beach for over 25 years.
“Unfortunately, like waves on a beach, they retreat having made not a scrap of difference, because however profoundly sensible the idea might be, funding will never match ambition and short-termism will win.It's got nothing to do with lack of funding or short termism. It's got more to do with your staff being free agents, and what they choose to put in their mouths being beyond your control...
5 comments:
High absenteeism in the NHS has nothing to do with the reasons being put forward here. All that is being regurgitated are the pathetic excuses medical staff are giving for taking time off. Some of course will be genuine but the majority will not. Of course I cannot prove that but knowing human nature as I do from experience and observation I can be fairly certain that I am right. One of the factors that leads me to believe that I am right is the unaccountable bureaucratic environment and staffing policies of the NHS that makes it easier for staff to absence themselves with impunity.
Another case of medical staff playing the system is the junior doctors dispute they role out the usual canard that it is all about safety in this case patients when in fact it is all about greedily wanting to hang on to their privileges, entitlements and comfortable working conditions.
Perhaps for certain taxpayer funded occupations requiring mobility eg nursing, policing, firefighting, the maintenance of a BMI(flawed measurement I know) of less than thirty should be a condition of employment: might encourage Nurse Mubenga to comfort eat lettuce leaves.
"Trusts have been told that they must do more to ensure that staff have the winter flu vaccine in order to protect vulnerable patients and reduce staff sickness."
Not a lot of point in that if this official report is anything to go by...........
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/flu-vaccine-shows-low-effectiveness-against-the-main-circulating-strain-seen-so-far-this-season
My Mum was in hospital recently and I've seen what kind of food the NHS deems nourishing.
The slop is unfit for human OR animal consumption. I brought her real food in every day because she couldn't eat the crap being served up to the captive, unwilling victims.
Bring on the fried chicken!
"..when in fact it is all about greedily wanting to hang on to their privileges, entitlements and comfortable working conditions."
Spot on!
"...might encourage Nurse Mubenga to comfort eat lettuce leaves."
Wow, but wouldn't the unions squeal? :) It might get BMI thrown out as a measure, actually, which would be no bad thing.
"Not a lot of point in that if this official report is anything to go by..........."
Heh! It's just as if they don't believe their own propaganda, isn't it?
"..I've seen what kind of food the NHS deems nourishing."
*shudders* Me too. When my father was in the hospital (that hastened his death) their food contract demanded that sandwiches be driven in, semi-frozen, from WALES!
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