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A Shout of Anger
535
neuropathy, injection of
would be welcome.
An intramuscular
active
antimycobacterial compound days for three years has definite administrative and cost advantages over twice-weekly oral dapsone ingestion for an indefinite period, and also over fortnightly parenteral injections of a 2025 % w/v suspension of dapsone in oil. The acceptability of the regimen used by SLOAN et al. and its applicability to the vast populations exposed to a real and feared risk of leprosy are matters for further controlled investigation. an
every seventy-seven
A Shout of Anger A HEALTH service cannot be good unless the people who work in it know they are getting a fair deal.
in nine separate functional councils,- all considering different claims at random times. They have to operate a system in which computer experts, or work-study practitioners, and any others who can take their labour into the open market-place, are treated far more generously than those, particularly the paramedical workers and technicians, for whom the N.H.S. is in effect a monopoly employer. Nursing administrators struggling to achieve a safe level of staffing know only too well the agency story: a hospital nurse who finds her N.H.S. salary too low joins an agency instead; the hospital then hires her services from the agency for far more than the Whitley rate, and the agency and the nurse split the difference. As a result, traditional hospital loyalties
disintegrate.
This is the story as it comes from an angry Mr. need faith in the for BRINTON and his many supporters. All are disThey system deciding salarythat their and confidence claims will be scales, satisfied, though they may have differing remedies. Some say the system could work well, if applied less thoughtfully discussed in a spirit of genuine negotiation. This was the original aim of Whitleyism, rigidly and more imaginatively: others would prefer a Health Service review body for all professions; or though until now the N.H.S. variety has seemed rather like a steam-age branch railway in Dorset: an unaligned pay research unit; or a unified Health often sometimes Service wages policy; or the creation of broad salary slow, cumbersome, late, missing bands within which local management can operate connections, but getting there in the end. Now the lid has been taken off, and a shoal of letters to The with some degree of freedom. Whatever the reason, and whatever the remedy, there can no longer be any Times, following Mr. HENRY BRINTON’s resignation from the Administrative and Clerical Whitley doubt that the health workers whom the Secretary of reveal that the brand of N.H.S. State hopes to lead into a reconstructed service in Council, Whitleyism is distrusted and resented by people of every pro1974 are a disillusioned and disaffected force, whose fession : indeed, the loss of confidence is so widemorale is beginning to disintegrate. We see a need for an entirely fresh deal, which will spread that sober and dedicated staff are now seriously considering the demo and the strike as the only recognise the essential unity and interdependence of means of getting a fair hearing. all health workers; management and staff must work What has happened to the fair hopes of N.H.S. out together, in genuine face-to-face negotiation, a since 1948 ? The Whitleyism correspondence straightforward system of salary relativities between columns of The Times give the answer with disturbing the various professions, with rewards comparable with those outside the N.H.S. And if health workers clarity. Surprisingly, it turns out that the Management Side has no power: it follows the instructions of are to concentrate on their real task, instead of who never appear at the negotiatTreasury officials perpetually fingering their pay-slips, they must feel have no Individual table. sure that their representatives are negotiating with managers ing hospital conditions can the rates and only apply power: they people who have power to settle, without having to laid down by a Whitley Council whose Management disappear into the darkness for further orders. If Side is a mouthpiece for the Treasury. So staff can national policy requires that the Treasury voice be to a local who management, only complain powerless heard, then Treasury representatives should be at themselves can only complain to a powerless Managethe table to answer the arguments of the other side. ment Side, who themselves can only put up with a Over and above all this, a good National Health bad system or, like Mr. BRINTON, vote with their feet Service ought to be proud to set an example as a good and depart. The heart of the discontent seems to be employer, to be ready itself to initiate improvements not only low salaries, though some of these are disin staff conditions, and to have a care for all its staff, the graceful enough, but knowledge that the Staff Side particularly those in the professions which are small is dealing with a Management Side which cannot of numerically, vital medically, but have little muscle its own volition concede a claim, however well in the political lobbies. Sir KEITH JOSEPH would be wise to heed this justified, without the prior consent of a group of who from the are absentees people remarkably unanimous shout of disapproval. He has permanent have to table. administrators Luckless negotiating already shown a concern for the major reconstruction of the National Health Service in 1974. Unless he implement Whitley decisions which are sometimes tackles this discredited Whitley system now, 1974 of Torquemadan complexity, with overlapping nonsenses flowing from separate jockeying for position may prove too late.
neuropathy, injection of
would be welcome.
An intramuscular
active
antimycobacterial compound days for three years has definite administrative and cost advantages over twice-weekly oral dapsone ingestion for an indefinite period, and also over fortnightly parenteral injections of a 2025 % w/v suspension of dapsone in oil. The acceptability of the regimen used by SLOAN et al. and its applicability to the vast populations exposed to a real and feared risk of leprosy are matters for further controlled investigation. an
every seventy-seven
A Shout of Anger A HEALTH service cannot be good unless the people who work in it know they are getting a fair deal.
in nine separate functional councils,- all considering different claims at random times. They have to operate a system in which computer experts, or work-study practitioners, and any others who can take their labour into the open market-place, are treated far more generously than those, particularly the paramedical workers and technicians, for whom the N.H.S. is in effect a monopoly employer. Nursing administrators struggling to achieve a safe level of staffing know only too well the agency story: a hospital nurse who finds her N.H.S. salary too low joins an agency instead; the hospital then hires her services from the agency for far more than the Whitley rate, and the agency and the nurse split the difference. As a result, traditional hospital loyalties
disintegrate.
This is the story as it comes from an angry Mr. need faith in the for BRINTON and his many supporters. All are disThey system deciding salarythat their and confidence claims will be scales, satisfied, though they may have differing remedies. Some say the system could work well, if applied less thoughtfully discussed in a spirit of genuine negotiation. This was the original aim of Whitleyism, rigidly and more imaginatively: others would prefer a Health Service review body for all professions; or though until now the N.H.S. variety has seemed rather like a steam-age branch railway in Dorset: an unaligned pay research unit; or a unified Health often sometimes Service wages policy; or the creation of broad salary slow, cumbersome, late, missing bands within which local management can operate connections, but getting there in the end. Now the lid has been taken off, and a shoal of letters to The with some degree of freedom. Whatever the reason, and whatever the remedy, there can no longer be any Times, following Mr. HENRY BRINTON’s resignation from the Administrative and Clerical Whitley doubt that the health workers whom the Secretary of reveal that the brand of N.H.S. State hopes to lead into a reconstructed service in Council, Whitleyism is distrusted and resented by people of every pro1974 are a disillusioned and disaffected force, whose fession : indeed, the loss of confidence is so widemorale is beginning to disintegrate. We see a need for an entirely fresh deal, which will spread that sober and dedicated staff are now seriously considering the demo and the strike as the only recognise the essential unity and interdependence of means of getting a fair hearing. all health workers; management and staff must work What has happened to the fair hopes of N.H.S. out together, in genuine face-to-face negotiation, a since 1948 ? The Whitleyism correspondence straightforward system of salary relativities between columns of The Times give the answer with disturbing the various professions, with rewards comparable with those outside the N.H.S. And if health workers clarity. Surprisingly, it turns out that the Management Side has no power: it follows the instructions of are to concentrate on their real task, instead of who never appear at the negotiatTreasury officials perpetually fingering their pay-slips, they must feel have no Individual table. sure that their representatives are negotiating with managers ing hospital conditions can the rates and only apply power: they people who have power to settle, without having to laid down by a Whitley Council whose Management disappear into the darkness for further orders. If Side is a mouthpiece for the Treasury. So staff can national policy requires that the Treasury voice be to a local who management, only complain powerless heard, then Treasury representatives should be at themselves can only complain to a powerless Managethe table to answer the arguments of the other side. ment Side, who themselves can only put up with a Over and above all this, a good National Health bad system or, like Mr. BRINTON, vote with their feet Service ought to be proud to set an example as a good and depart. The heart of the discontent seems to be employer, to be ready itself to initiate improvements not only low salaries, though some of these are disin staff conditions, and to have a care for all its staff, the graceful enough, but knowledge that the Staff Side particularly those in the professions which are small is dealing with a Management Side which cannot of numerically, vital medically, but have little muscle its own volition concede a claim, however well in the political lobbies. Sir KEITH JOSEPH would be wise to heed this justified, without the prior consent of a group of who from the are absentees people remarkably unanimous shout of disapproval. He has permanent have to table. administrators Luckless negotiating already shown a concern for the major reconstruction of the National Health Service in 1974. Unless he implement Whitley decisions which are sometimes tackles this discredited Whitley system now, 1974 of Torquemadan complexity, with overlapping nonsenses flowing from separate jockeying for position may prove too late.