Thursday 31 December 2020

The New Year's Eve Ishmael

  "Ring Out, Wild Bells"  by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1850

 Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Talking of foul disease, the remuneration for G.P.s is so complex  it requires an explanatory book of hundreds of pages. It is basically a system of piece work and expenses. They do not think they are paid enough and their trade union, the BMA, had attempted to negotiate a 14% pay rise; therefore they are most disappointed in the above-inflation 3.9% increase, which will come into force in April 2021. Until then, the average GP net income is £54,220 plus indirect expenses of £24,510 and directly reimbursed expenses averaging just over £60,000, totalling £139,000 on average .

The other 2.6 million public sector workers, including teachers and police are not getting a pay rise. The Chancellor, Ritchie Rich has given them a pay freeze. Again. No doubt they would be delighted to be offered the GP percentage increase. As a reminder, and for comparison purposes, the national average annual wage in the U.K. is £29,600 and the National Living Wage is £8.72 pence per hour.
60% of the GP fee scale comprises:
  • A standard payment for each patient on a GP's list;
  • A registration fee for taking on new patients;
  • Fees for child health checks;
  • A supplement paid to GPs working in deprived areas;
  • A similar payment made to GPs working in rural areas.

Other fees include:

  • Seniority payments - paid to long-serving doctors;
  • Education allowance;
  • Payments to take on assistant doctors;
  • Payments to the practice to recognise local needs or start-up costs;
  • Payments to fund cover when the surgery is closed;
  • Payments for providing health promotion services, and other incentive payments The rest of the fee scale is made up of piece work, including:
  • Minor surgery fees;
  • Night visit fees;
  • Payments for providing contraceptive services;
  • Maternity service payments.
On the 06/11/2020 it was announced that GPs will be paid £12.58 per Covid vaccination jab administered and, to add insult to injury, on the 30th December we learned that GPS are to receive an additional payment of £10 for every care home resident they vaccinate against Covid. Thank goodness our GPS are a fine, altruistic body of men and women, all with a strong sense of vocation. God knows how much they'd cost us if they were in it for the money.


8 comments:

Mike said...

When Aneurin Bevan set up the NHS he had to bribe GPs to join. He famously said: "I stuffed their mouths with gold".

Anonymous said...

Greedy bastards - the new priesthood.

Anyway, have to ask - is that "red dress to all mankind" bit in the A.L.T. poem a Trans Lives Matter slogan avant la lettre? Not bad for a patrician Victorian greybeard.

bonne année à tous, and watch this space for news of the "stanislav rest of best" anthology (volume 1b) in the coming months.

cheers

v./

mrs ishmael said...

And we just have to keep on stuffing them, mr mike.
Happy New Year to all who gather here, muttering about Ruin. Better luck next year.

Mike said...

Best wishes to all. I didn't bother staying awake for the Sydney fireworks last night; glad to see the end to this last year. Today its a chilly 21C. Feels like winter.

I once knew an eminent cardiologist in London, nice chap, now dead. He was being done over by The Revenue because of his private practice earnings. He told me about a meeting he had with an impudent young upstart from the IR. He had to warn him that one day he would need his heart looked at, and he offered him a free consultation.

Looking forward to the Sydney test, Mr Mongoose; the last one was a cracker. I agree Smith looks a spent force.

Bungalow Bill said...

I wished everyone happy things on the last thread but, as ever, my timing was astray.

May the cavaliers win this time round and may all the po-faced perish. Here's to the restoration.

mongoose said...

Happy New Year to us all. Let us hope, as we do every year, for better, and if not better, kinder at least.

Brexit done and dusted. Free at last, free at last but We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, now under house arrest. How did it come to this?

ultrapox said...

brino or no,
we'll stick two fingers up to the old franco-kraut foe,
then wish for full repeats of one very british serial,
to celebrate the free-fall of all that poses as imperial
- yes, it's really just gotta be a completely uncensored re-run
of that camp cult-comedy-classic: it ain't arf hot mum.

mike g siliplan said...

@mongoose

"how did it come to this?"

coz you're a bunch of stupid bloody buggers, of course


@ultrapox

well, series? serial? who soddin' cares...?

because the only thing i know for sure...

is that they don't make 'em like that any more:

pure bloody british gold

...and wouldn't you just love to behold the look of sheer undiluted politically correct horror etched indelibly across the boy starmer's otherwise blank-as-a-fart face, if the bbc actually did put the show back on telly...

gadzooks, it would almost be worth paying the fuckin' license fee for...

but i suppose the question is:


"to repeat, or not to repeat?"


ermmm...

how about we hold a referendum on it?