Latest Moan From You and Me 2024

Rich Rishi has a plan.

To reduce the number of people who are out of work because they are unwell, he's decided that the best people to judge whether someone is fit for work or not is.... well he doesn't say. He just says it's NOT actual doctors. You know, those people that study for years to understand how humans actually work, and have access to all the patient's medical details? Well they're apparently not the best people to judge. What the country needs is presumably a whole new expensive government department of people that, well we don't know what their skills will be, but they're not GPs. Those people of as yet unspecified skills will be better placed to decide if someone is poorly, or fit for work.

Rishi Sunak sets out plans to tackle 'sick note culture'

I know there are people that abuse the system. There always will be. But contrary to what Rich Rishi, and he's not the first, want us to believe, I think the vast majority of people that get a sick note (they're called fit notes now) genuinely are broken.

And as for the BBC reporting of it, there's a reason the sick note is now called the fit note. Contrary to what the BBC tells us, the fit note doesn't always say we can't work. It basically tells your employer how much, if anything, you can do. As someone that had to use this last year, I know they are not just issued willy nilly. The doctor has to think it's right, and in my experience that involves a discussion and a review of the notes. It doesn't always discharge you from work either. My fit note last year was basically four weeks off following surgery, fair enough. Then once the risk of me bursting open and spewing my inerds out had passed, but I was still quite broken, we negotiated that I can go back to work because I felt like I could do something, I got 'amended duties' for a few weeks. That's not the same as being on the sick, costing me the nation billions through laziness. It's basically managing a sick person through a sickness and helping them to stay in their job despite being unable to meet their usual performance standards due to medical reasons.

So my beef with the article is twofold really. It's with the failed PM showing total contempt for human beings at all levels. Whether it's the human beings that are having a run of bad luck with their health, or the GPs that apparently aren't the right people to assess someone's fitness to work. And I'm annoyed by the BBC reporting of it, who seem to tar everyone with the same brush, basically explaining that a fit note is really a sick note, used to claim welfare benefits. Oh, and when I was 'on the sick', like I suspect a lot of people, I didn't claim a single penny in benefits.

 

It crossed my mind, I have to say. But then I thought, nah, he can't be cos who would watch over his hostas while he jetted off to Davos to hobnob with the super wealthy!

 

With respect @Fat Controller, were you actually the boss, or a manager, having worked in places that have both, I think managers are not really able to do all they may like to do if part of a big company.

 

You can't deny, we do seem to have a mental health epidemic since covid.

I do wonder how many of those are just pissed off, like we all get from time to time, I've been there and I bet a lot of others have, wont go any further, but the more they keep banging on about it the more people are going to confuse the two.

Everyone seem "anxious", yeah, but that's not a mental health problem.

And you can actually stab loads of people and just say you have mental health problems and get away with murder, literally.

It all started with soft matting under kids playgrounds.

 

Why is the government lauded for getting rid of low level bureaucratic jobs? These people are working for a living - perhaps doing jobs that a computer could do cheaper. Surely paying them to do a simple job is better than having them sit at home claiming benefits and doing bugger all. Why can't the more advantaged of us ( financially or intellectually) realise that even the people that they consider inferior need a sense of purpose.
In the past, they served the rich or served the army as cannon fodder. Surely we can do better.

 

Maybe. But who is best placed to decide if someone is genuinely struggling Vs someone who is trying to milk the system? It's not you or me or some group of barely trained bureaucrats. I already think the GP service is going downhill likely because their hands are tied. If it comes to pass that a GP's opinion on whether someone is even poorly suddenly becomes irrelevant, then you have to ask, what is the point of them? We might as well just replace all the expertise in the NHS with some half arsed piece of over budget software. Of course that would render the NHS completely useless. A lot of valuable, saleable data would be captured though. Great for marketing campaigns by private medical companies and such.

 

I wonder if maybe that was the plan all along. There's been noise for years that the government is trying to stealth privatise the NHS. I think they've already largely achieved it. Years ago, if your employer offered anything to do with private medical cover as a perk, it was usually of the format that a normal GP had to make a referral before you could access the private service. Now it's increasingly common that companies offer private GP consultancy services. They'll be the same GPs that we used to have in the NHS no doubt. Probably all going private because the government keeps squeezing the terms of their NHS contracts.

Basically I think the government's strategy has always been that if you want to bin something that the voters really want to keep, you make it rubbish, then scream about how expensive it is, until nobody cares any more if it goes. I have a feeling that's exactly what we've been seeing for quite some time now.

 

He would be wise to do an Andrew Carnegie, philanthropist who is still well known today and his name in history for ever, Rather than rich rocket man dies leaving a fortune to the USA IRS

 

GPs have been handing out sick notes to people for years without doing any real delving into the crux of the problem, it just seems to have got worse.
Probably because they are over stretched more than ever and just signing something is a lot less hassle than trying to get to the bottom of things, especially if they were to miss a real problem, they dont have time.
No body checks when I reorder prescriptions, I have options that I could reorder that I haven't used in years.

Looking at my Doctors surgery website you can apply online for a sick note.