h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Would this include perms or just rehab work on how to use a curling iron, hot rollers, etc? And how would they deal with post-op frizz?


az

Don't. You are reminding me of the nauseating adverts in this country that actually equated hairdressers with surgeons and nurses.

No!

az

>no!< what?

Well, that there are adverts equating hairdressers with surgeons and nurses! I just couldn't believe this somehow.


az

Ah. I'm sure others have seen them. They depict simpering hairdressers in surgical scrubs giving 'ermercency help' to women with 'dull lifeless hair'.

At first I thought they were a parody (In the manner of Sacha Baron Cohen getting a clothes designer in America to admit he thought he was as important as abrain surgeon, for which I will forever forgive him all the crappy Ali G rubbish ), but they turned out to be hair care product adverts.

One word: Golgafrinchans

Well indeed. I suppose I never made the connection.

When do we start building the 'B' Ark?

http://www.visit4info.com/details.cfm?adid=28254

Actually, the one which really peed me off was the Herbal Essences one - There is a difference between orgasm and hair-washing. I worry for the sexual partners of whoever thought that one up.

You have a point. But I worry for the partners of advertising execs anyway.

Golgafrichans???

Yeah, what you mentioned, Blues, sounds similar to ads I've seen here for women's 'beauty centres' where the attendants are all wearing 'whites' and looking somehow 'doctor-ish'. Well, didn't Clinique start doing this 20-30 years ago? I think they don't do this anymore.

Regarding 'emergency help' for hair, trust me, if there was *anything* out there that might help my CONDITION I'm sure I would have found it by now. I've just got stupid hair. It isn't dull and lifeless - in fact the main problem is that it seems to have an entirely rather frisky life of its own that I'm not particularly happy with.


az

I see another hospital is shedding 400 jobs today - however this "won't affect patient care"

Of course not. Every hospital trust has 400 staff it employs just to stand around and look pretty.

Talking to a GP in the North of England yesterday "frightening" is the only term I can find to describe the NHS incompetence he described.

Certain areas have 4 adnmin staff for every bed, whilst the nurses at the sharp end cover 4 beds or more each.

The newest lunacy was to implement the EU Working Time Directive , without thinking the results through. Paramedic staff had their week cut from 42(?)hrs to 37.5 with the result that the area is now 58 paramedics short! "Brilliant"

Novo

Well, the working time directive only specifies a maximum of 48 hours/week (averaged), and some limits on length of time working without a rest-break.
It doesn't seem like a move from 42 to 37.5 hours is EU-related, though the EU is always a good scapegoat for things done for other reasons.

The difficulty with the EU Working Time Directive is that it is a statutory act which they are obliged to implement by law.

In fairness, though, the WTD has been a bit badly represented by management. It's all very well to blame management for implementing something over which they had no choice, but thos technicians have the option to opt out of the scheme in order to make up the hours. I suspect that the problem budget wise for the Trusts is that the shortfall of '58 technicians' has to be made up by paying overtime rates. Which is just one of those things.

(My wife's entire dept has refused to sign up to the WTD as management won't fork out the necessary cash to make up the shortfall in wages from coming off the old shift patterns onto the new ones. Effectively management are trying to use WTD as a stick with which to beat workers into taking lower wages.)

Oh goody goody, we're back to whacking NHS administration whilst the sun shines out of the nurses' bottom.

A figure of one nurse per four beds is about right for a general ward. The levels of nursing vary obviously by the munber of patients you have scheduled for admission to your ward, and the type and level of care required. It will be pretty low on Ophthalmology wards, as the patients are ambulatory so can do most things for themselves; and goes up to extremely high on all forms of ICU where there will be more than one nurse per bad 24/7/365.

As for the figure of 4 admin staff per bed, well I'm afraid your friend is misinformed. I can't think of a single general hospital where the figure would be much more than about 0.6wte per bed, and that would mean taking in the widest possible definition of admin staff.

And whilst we're on the subject of admin staff. What's wrong with having people around your hospital who do things like: running the payroll; doing the supplies purchasing; sorting the patient notes; writing letters to GPs and to patients; paying the bills; staffing the various reception desks for clinics and what have you. I myself would have thought that having people like that around the place would be kind of useful.

Face it mate. You will always lose out in public sympathy when it comes to the payroll battle with doctors and nurses. Just a civil servants get no sympathy from the general public.

You are always going to get whacked rather than them.

>>"The difficulty with the EU Working Time Directive is that it is a statutory act which they are obliged to implement by law."

But it doesn't seem to require a 37.5 hour week, which would imply there's some other reason.

Looking around, it seems that the 37.5 hours is part of an NHS-wide standardisation as part of 'Agenda for Change'.

http://www.paramedic-resource-centre.com/agenda.htm

>>Working hours
>>All staff full time will work a basic week of 37.5 hrs. There is a "phasing in" process in which full time staff whose hours are slightly higher or lower than this will gradually reduce or increase their hours over a number of years to get to the standard 37.5hrs.

If there is a slow phasing in, that would seem to give some time to try and recruit extra staff, unless existing staff are happy to work the same hours as they did before, but now getting paid for overtime.

You are right. I missed the 37.5 figure. That can't be WTD, which is 48 hours.