Oops

Age is said to bring wisdom, but, sadly, this is no guarantee that we stop making stupid mistakes as we get older. DZ is no exception. In the last few years, among other poor decisions, he has used his teeth as a wire stripper on a live wire, and used a power saw on a ceiling panel that had an asbestos warning attached. He is currently carrying some minor scars from an unfortunate encounter with a motorcyclist. One of his offspring has commented that he has "more lives than a cat"

He is also not immune from gaffs in the area of social interaction. There is a lady who DZ is quiet close to. She has recently and relatively late in life for a congenital condition been diagnosed with hip dysplasia. DZ response to this news was perhaps a little tactless. "Oh," I said "I once had a dog with that problem". The lady asked me what treatment had been given for the condition. Perhaps DZ should have thought before answering. "There was nothing for it, we had him put down"

Logic?

I think It's fair to say that Jeremy Hunt is at least on the shortlist for being the most despised health secretary ever. He has a reputation among NHS staff for being aloof, unthinking and callous when it comes to patients. And exploitative and belligerent when it comes to his staff. 

To my mind however his worst failings are that he is demonstrably illogical and unintelligent. As a prime example;

He was warned that if he abolished bursaries then applications for nurse training would plummet. DZ is old enough to remember when nurse training was not only free, but the students got a wage, and has commented before on how converting nurse training to a degree course was a con, a trap into which the nursing profession fell willingly. Abolition of bursaries is just the next step on the road to getting nursing on the cheap.

But true to form Hunt ignored the warnings and went ahead anyway. And the warnings proved accurate. So, what is his response to a 23% slump in applications for nurse training. It's a 25% increase in nurse training places of course. Perhaps I'm missing something here, but it seems logical to me that, if a quarter of places remain unfilled, then that is not addressed by creating more places. Is it? What sort of pigheaded fuckwit could possibly imagine that this is a solution. It is clear that this man refuses to acknowledge that the problem is of his making.

I note also he "He will also pledge funding for a further 5,500 “nursing associates” each year – who will “earn and learn”, rather than study full-time through a traditional university degree."  Return of the SEN then, which, frankly I think is no bad thing, as long as their non degree status is not used as an excuse to pay them a pittance.

Is it any wonder that the NHS is in the state it's in with this man at the helm?