physiotherapyblog on Google

OK here's a confession. I've largely ignored this blog for weeks but to my surprise it's on the first page of Google! In the past it came up under a search of physiotherapyblog but not physiotherapy blog. So for all you millions of Googlers out there I suppose I had better start writing something on a regular basis and putting some new material on the site . I signed up to Flickr today (not under this blog's names) but realised after than you don't get unlimited pictures on it. That takes money.

I'm not sure how someone writes on a blog bout their job in healthcare without breaking confidentiality. I've got heaps of web material I could link to but I'm not sure the world needs yet another list of good websites. I'll just have to think hard and come up with some bright ideas.

what no blogs?

I thought I ought to write another entry to the blog, but I can't say I'm particulary impressed with this whole blogging thing. I started with loads of enthusiasm in March of this year but now can't see the point of it all. I've got too many real world things to do than to sit at the computer every day thinking up bright ideas. The big project I have on the go at the moment is writing a book on bike rides , and it is time consuming trying testing out the rides. I've done 13 out of the 15 but I'm having to do them all twice. After having tried them out I am going back to masure distances. With hindsight I should have used an odometer /mileometer at the start of this project so by now I would have been well into the writing stage.

I suppose I feel some apathy towards ranting about healthcare in the UK, and over the last 6 months have come to the conclusion that blogging, at least here, is not going to change very many things. I'm not sure if most bloggers are students with heaps of time on their hands. So there's not a lot to say about physiotherapy in the UK. Perhaps we should re-visit Agenda for Change (AfC). In case any of you UK physiotherapits did not realise next month sees us all working an extra hour per week. Some physios seem to have been conned and have been forced into working an extra half day per month as a result of their employer adding all the extra time up and saying they have to do it in one go. Those with longer memories will go back to the AfC agreement and remember hours change by an extra hour PER WEEK. The problem with AfC changing our terms of employment is that now the enthusiasm and controversy over the regrading has gone the effect of the time increase is to all but negate any pay increases we had 2 years ago. Let's hope that next year's annual pay award is better than this year's, especially for English phyios who have yet to receive the original award from April.

physiotherapy news

I've not heard anything about physios in the news recently but there's a big story which won't be given much space in the newspapers or on TV. We now have another mass of newly qualified physios out there looking for jobs when 100's from the last 2 or 3 years of graduates still are not working within healthcare. I've ranted on about this in previous posts but I think it is one of THE major issues within physiotherapy in the UK. Sometimes it feels as if the problem is not being given a high enough profile but it should attact wider interest other than from just within the profession. Anyone who pays taxes is subsidising university training programmes which for many are leading nowhere.

The other issue affecting NHS physios is the pay award situation and I think this is rather gloomy situation. The Government descriminates against English physiotherapists by giving them a less favourable pay award than those in Wales or Scotland. Also within the public sector is the real term reduction of salary through paying awards below the rate of inflation. This point seems to have been lost in the issue of whether the aware will be staged or not staged.

physiotherapy blog

So somewhere I've found motivation to reschedule things in my life and start up the blog again. The biggest barrier to writing was the fact that this whole thing seems the stuff that saddos do, stuck in their bedrooms on their own typing thoughts onto blogs that no on in the whole world will read, believing that somehow what they are doing counts for something. The thing that changed my view of all this was realising that I've made it to the first page of Google if you search for physiotherapy blog. THIS changes everything! Suddenly all these meaningless rantings take on the potential of changing the course of world physical therapy, expanding knowledge, moving everyone onwards. No I don't really believe this but there's now a chance that what I'm doing will move beyond the value attributed to it within my own illusions (or should that be delusions ?) Maybe someone will read this!

Unfortunately in these last few busy months I've lost a bit of the anger at the injustices in the NHS and the way that healthcare is delivered in the UK. I doubt if it is anything to do with a change of Prime Minister. I'm just feeling distracted by some of the other things Ive got on the go.But here's something to make you English physios rant. The grand pay award of 2.5% for this year will be paid in full to nurses (and presumably AHPs) in Scotland, NE., and Wales but looks like those in England won't get it in one go. Is this something to do with the fact that the new Prime Minister is a Scot and has a lack of loyalty towards English NHS staff? And what about all Gordon's talk of the NHS, what's going to happen ? I heard he wanted to find out the views of NHS staff but as I've said before we all know this will probably mean the two professions (doctors and nurses) which the Government seems to think make up the entire NHS. will be asked what they think and the rest of us won't get a look in. There was talk of NHs staff fatigue over NHs change. Too true, the Labour years have been ones of constant NHS restructuring in the name of progress.I was talking to a patient this week about the billions that have gone into the Health Service and I said that despite the billons that have been put into the NHS the phyios where I work are under greater financial pressure than ever before.

just too busy to blog

OK so I've not done anything to this blog for ages. When i first started out I had the crazy idea I could keep 3 blogs going on different subjects but now i find that i'm too busy to keep just this blog going. I heard on TV that loads of people write blogs and send e mails in work time. There's no chance for this in the NHS, or perhaps more accurately no time to do this for fun. I spend a significant amount oftime every day sorting out e mails but they are all work related. That's just about all I've got time for. I was wiondering if excessive blogging is a sign of something, I'm not sure what, maybe not having enough going on that's more important or more interesting than sitting in front of a computer screen.

Is a ban on pain killers coming?

People are becoming addicts to over the counter pain drugs, so runs a recent news story. The last time this type of thing hit the news was over co-proxamol and it's use in suicide attempts. I have heard first hand how the ban on co-proxamol has badly affected some people and there is the risk that with the typical knee jerk reaction so prevalent in health care policy that another group of drugs which benefit many people will be removed from chemists' shelves. Drug abuse is something which needs attention but there is a massively unequal reaction to the small number of pain killer addicts compared to policy designed to address alcoholism. Alcohol has never been more readily available but UK health and social policy does not do anything to effectively reduce alcohol abuse. The Government has a vested interest in keeping alcohol consuption high because of the tax revenue it generates. There is a seriuos need to get clearer priorities in healthcare policy and to have a more transparent perspective of vested political interest.

NHS change

I get fed up with NHS changes. Just when you think that you understand how things work and there is an element of stability then everything changes again. I think this is because of the managers within the NHS and reflects the problem of management within the public sector. In the private sector a manager is judged by their contribution to company profit. However in the public sector everything is different. Because managers in public services do not produce anything (and actually cost the organisation) then they have to create the illusion of productivity by initiating change. Through changing things in the NHS they can make it look like progress or improvement. The hardest thing to accept is the way that Agenda for Change was applied to management. The biggest component of AfC scoring was for clinical activity,so in my thinking this should have made clinicians more highly paid that managers lacking clinical contact or expertise. This is definiely not what happened. I heard a rumour that one of the reaons for NHS financial problems were the large salary increases for managers under AfC. Just a rumour or near the truth?