[CB..]

I do not comment on the number of doctors in the health care system, i do not know it for england, for germany I know that more and more absolvents of university leave germany as fast as they can, because the bad working conditions for hosital doctors here. Many of them run duty for 36 hours and more. I know of people being on duty for 40 hours. do you want to receive surgery by such a fella? Would you do his job with such killer-shifts?

well sadly that is precisely the point....when staff are placed into such intolerable and highly pressured conditions there can be little room for the care and empathy that all patients genuinely need...passing that intolerable pressure down the chain of command (if you like) is exactly the opposite of what is required...what is required is more doctors and more consultants with better working conditions, and more nurses also...because it is the ground level nurse that tends to provide the support and empathy for the patient...the doctors are there to make the clinical decisions...forcing the nurses to make clinical decisions will only force them too to become more detached and clinical in their approach to the patient...

which will have the exact opposite effect to that mentioned in the guidelines...

topsy turvy thinking...simply to avoid the expense of employing sufficient numbers of doctors and consultants to do the job properly...this is why these soloutions arouse such suspicion..because all it serves to do is temporarily distract the public from the genuine problem...all that will result from these guidlines is that senior nurses will leave their jobs and go else where as you described..just as the doctors and consultants have..lowering the quality of care even further and escalating the pressure on those who remain.. and so it goes ever on

employ sufficient numbers of doctors and consultants and the whole system will begin to work again as it was intended with happy staff and better standards of care...the "impossible" soloution of course as it costs money..money the authoritys consider better spent elsewhere....the rest is just "spin doctoring" and to emphasise the point what are the pay/working conditions of the countrys "spin doctors"? the powers that be have laid their cards on the table...their prioritys are clear