NHS Staff Demand Right to Stop Working if it Gets Too Hot
Doctors are demanding the right to go on “heat strike” as the UK basks in temperatures upwards of 30°C, arguing that NHS staff should not be forced to work in conditions above a certain temperature. The Telegraph has more.
A surge of hot weather will see temperatures increase to more than 30°C this week and over the weekend, prompting a health warning from officials.
It comes as senior doctors announced they would be voting on members’ appetite to strike with an “indicative ballot” after receiving an “insulting” 4% pay rise this year.
The “heat strike” motion put forward by members of the British Medical Association (BMA) is calling on the union to demand that the NHS adopts a “national maximum workplace temperature”.
It said the BMA should support staff to take “heat strike action” if the temperature rises any higher than that, allowing all non-essential staff to walk out.
A threshold should be set using available evidence, it added. Some estimates suggest that staff concentration is affected at 24°C, while the NHS says vulnerable patients could suffer at 26°C.
The proposals, which also call for funding to keep NHS buildings cool enough to work, have been put forward by the BMA’s London regional council to be voted on at its annual meeting next week.
It said that there was “evidence linking workplace heat to stress, poor health outcomes, reduced performance and decreased patient safety” and that the “escalating climate and health emergency is increasing the frequency and severity of heatwaves in the UK, such that extreme working temperatures are very likely to become ever more common”.
If medics can’t work above 25° it’s a miracle anywhere south of Devon has healthcare at all. Alternatively, and more likely, the NHS is, quite literally, staffed by snowflakes.
Worth reading in full.
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On grounds of efficiency I can see why some jobs in some places need aircon. That is incompatible with Net Zero however for two reasons.
First and most obvious, public sector buildings do not have room stats or CH timers so the heat is belting out all the time.
Second, aircon uses a lot of juice.
Most NHS staff are used to temperatures of well above 30degrees C.
Agreed. I was going to make the same point that a lot of NHS staff will be used to temperatures over 30 degrees C – but struggled with the wording and was reluctant to post it; however, you have worded it perfectly.
Gordon Bennett, what a p*ss-take! Maybe they could ring up hospitals in Australia, Africa or the Middle East and see how those staff manage when the weather is constantly ‘Betty Swollocks’/’Clam Chowder’ outside. It reminds me of this claptrap that was fortunately kicked to the curb straight away. Can you imagine? Extended breaks for ‘binding and tucking’. It’d be like giving smokers longer breaks than non-smokers;
”An LGBTQ+ group proposed plans for transgender NHS staff should be given extra breaks if they wore chest binders or needed a break from tucking their genitals away.
In a draft guidance report allegedly seen by The Telegraph, the LGBTQ+ staff network within the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust said its trans staff ‘may require extra scheduled breaks in their shift in order to have breaks from binding and tucking’.
If the move had been accepted it would reportedly have been a first for the health service who currently offer no advice for trans people who use the methods to appear less masculine or feminine.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14766673/NHS-trust-trans-staff-chest-binder-tucking-genitals.html
Chest binders or having your bollocks tucked way must be really sweaty and uncomfortable in warm weather. Maybe trans staff should be allowed to stop working at lower temperatures than other staff.
Or given free supplies of Lynx although that might just encourage them to sniff their nether regions.
Farmer O’Mahony gets his leg ripped off in a bailing machine accident and air ambulance lifts him to emergency only to find the staff are all cooling off in the quite room and cannot help him until the heats gone off!
“evidence linking workplace heat to stress, poor health outcomes, reduced performance and decreased patient safety”
I can well imagine patient safety suffers if the firkers go on heat strike.
FFS.
Absolute, utter, cowardly, useless shirkers.
They want to try working a double in a paper mill.
‘Doing a double’ meant working two eight hour shifts straight through. Temperatures in the top 80’s. Bloody mard arses.
After working on a ward in 1976 wearing a heavy twill uniform and petersham belt the ward sister allowed us to undo the top button and remove our belts. No fans available so that was the only concession to the heat.
Living in Thailand the road workers last year were toiling away in 40C heat. For them no work=no pay so they work.
Unlike the namby-pambys in the NHS.
To be fair, in the 1970’s nurses weren’t fat
We have had many great and wonderful Comedians over the years that were not tied to the Woke, don’t upset anybody shower of sh*t comedians we have today.
Off topic but nonetheless a great line from Bernard Manning.
’Whenever I fly, I always sit at the back of the plane. Who has ever heard of a plane backing into a mountain?’ One of the greatest comical lines ever, comes from the clown who said, ‘NHS envy of the world’. Hilarious.
Bernard Manning – absolute class.
“Can you tell me where the Man City ground is?”
“It’s at the top of the hill, son. When you get there, you’ll see 2 queues. For Christ’s sake don’t get in the long one – that’s for the chippy.”
Now look here, you old people. You are not allowed to suffer from heat related illnesses. Just because the government said you were most likely to succumb to heat, there is no point believing them.
In other news, this week our painters are cracking on climbing up and down scaffolding, doing as much as possible in the fine weather, our roofers ditto, and the next door farmer is working until nightfall leading the hay before the weather breaks.
That’ll be bloody toxic masculinity.
Snowflakes melt.
Hopefully it’s just a few union bosses that have come up with this nonsense and the vast majority of frontline NHS staff are focused on patient care regardless of the temperature outside.
Many of our newer hospital have large sealed windows and air conditioning. Heat builds up especially if many windows face south. But you cannot run the aircon because of the risk of legionella. Solution: reflective film and fans.
I think more likely they won’t run the aircon as they have signed up to the religion of green bullshit.
And the NHS will have the right not to pay them with the full backing of their funding taxpayers.
“allowing all non-essential staff to walk out.”
I suggest if they are non-essential that they permanently walk out – you’re not needed! Spend the money on more air con.