101–110 of 161 posts
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These burdens are put in place to prevent employer (as in superiors, not the folks you serve) abuse. They would abuse government servants here and there if it were easily replaced.
Emergency powers should override that.
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We can't buy groceries, nor pay rent nor utilities with volunteer hours. So long as we're subjected to Capitalist demands, we'll be forced to demand Capitalist compensation, or perish.
I also can't buy groceries from holding the door open for people and yet I do. People are sometimes just nice to each other, helping each other out, especially in need, or in this case, a pandemic.
It is too easy to say the a mass of people should just work for free to cope for the mistakes of their government. Now of course some people will do it and I admire them, some of them will even do it while in personal financial trouble and I admire them even more.
But they absolutely should be paid in the end. Because the value they will provide to the society is just enormous, and "us" (for those who do not help with the crisis) not paying them would not really be the fairest situation...
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People who don't want any money often provide the best service (and in this case will most likely also have the lowest likelihood of carrying the virus).
Aka: people who already have money provide the best free services.
Admittedly not everyone can afford to volunteer
Wouldn’t it be more appropriate just to hire people and set them to work in the NHS? It’s way past time the government stopped messing around and just hired all the spare labour - which can then be directed to assist the NHS or directed to stay at home as required. When there are so many people without work that want it we need to stop QE’ing Gilts and start QE’ing workers hours instead. All this could be done with a…
It's a collection of hundreds of legally separate organisations. A doctor goes to work for eg Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, or for Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust, they don't go to work for "The NHS".
In 2017 there were:
207 clinical commissioning groups,
135 acute non-specialist trusts (including 84 foundation trusts),
17 acute specialist trusts (including 16 foundation trusts),
54 mental health trusts (including 42 foundation trusts),
35 community providers (11 NHS trusts, 6 foundation trusts,
17 social enterprises and 1 limited company),
10 ambulance trusts (including 5 foundation trusts), and
7,454 GP practices.
The largest is probably Barts Health NHS Trust, which employs about 15,000 people. The smallest is probably Weston Area Health NHS Trust which I think employs about 1,700 people.
These organisations are legally separate. They have their own board of directors. They employ their own staff.
To change this we'd have to roll-back the Lansley Reforms, and that's too hard to do even when we're not going through pandemic.
Interesting to see the comments suggesting that we should expect the NHS to pay if there is a problem that needs solving. It seems the implication is that labour should never be done voluntarily (even in a crisis situation) in a free economy. I find it bleak that we expect our societies and markets to function, solely driven by "selfish" value-chasing individuals. As someone who has grown up benefitting from the NHS,…
Because when those volunteers go to get something they want, such as buying a home or paying rent, it won't be given to them free. It might be possible for some sense of social capital to exist to feel the gap, but that seems to be mostly gone these days as it has be optimized and hacked until it is no longer recognizable.
I think the initiative is laudable. We know that on a regular Friday or Saturday night, the NHS is already struggling with waiting time up to 4 hours in hospitals and low bed capacity. Mass COVID-19 infections would certainly cripple the NHS in no time. Yet, the problem is how do we ensure that those 250K volunteers do not become carriers of COVID-19 ?
> the NHS is already struggling with waiting time up to 4 hours in hospitals Interestingly, my local hospital emailed today and said that "Emergency Department attendance figures have fallen by 130 cases per day, or around 40% as a result of this crisis"
Wouldn’t it be more appropriate just to hire people and set them to work in the NHS? It’s way past time the government stopped messing around and just hired all the spare labour - which can then be directed to assist the NHS or directed to stay at home as required. When there are so many people without work that want it we need to stop QE’ing Gilts and start QE’ing workers hours instead. All this could be done with a…
Contract hours, minimum pay, tax implications for pensioners, availability. Sometimes things are more complicated than just writing a script. This is quicker and can be disbanded just as fast.
But those complications can be set aside for the moment, and anyone caught abusing the normal regulations can be dealt with severely later.
Interesting to see the comments suggesting that we should expect the NHS to pay if there is a problem that needs solving. It seems the implication is that labour should never be done voluntarily (even in a crisis situation) in a free economy. I find it bleak that we expect our societies and markets to function, solely driven by "selfish" value-chasing individuals. As someone who has grown up benefitting from the NHS,…
Perhaps it's bleak, but it is an expectation that generally works even without massive brainwashing. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
> Interestingly, in the past I've also experienced private health-care in the US, and yet wouldn't consider volunteering...
So your willingness to help is premised on upholding some collectivist institution, not on helping save lives in times of a crisis. Interesting indeed.
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What will they spend it on? They can't go out, can't spend it on anything but essentials and some percentage of those essentials are difficult to get anyway.
> What will they spend it on? Amazon.
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It's a good idea,but would require an act of congress Edit: Or relevant funding institution for the UK
In the UK?
* https://services.parliament.uk/Bills/2019-21/coronavirus/doc...
Emergency volunteers are sections 8 and 9, and a bunch of stuff in the schedules.