Dumbing down the professions - lawyer lite
The government's continuing attack on the professions has two purposes. First of all, it serves their need for centralised, top-down micro-management. Secondly, it saves money. It takes many years to train a barrister or doctor. Both command high salaries and both insist on working with professional independence. The Americans talk about paraprofessionals. Teaching assistants, paramedics, health care professionals. Give them all a government sanctioned protocol to follow and Gordon Brown would have you believe that you get the job done just as well and much more cheaply. It has happened to the teachers and the doctors, and now the government is trying to do it to the lawyers. Yet another example appears in today's newspapers.
A convicted drugs offender has escaped a confiscation order for up to £4.5 million of his assets because legal aid barristers would not take on the case for the fixed fee of £175.25 a day. In a dramatic illustration of the impact of new legal aid fees, the man had to act for himself and won an appeal for the confiscation order to be set aside because he was not represented by a lawyer (The Times)Barristers are in a more fortunate position than teachers and doctors. If they make a stand, and a defendant cannot be legally represented, the court must find them not guilty. This may be the beginning of a long fight for the barristers. Already they have had to deal with the Crown Prosecution Service, that notorious centre of legal mediocrity. How long before we have the introduction of the Crown Defence Service, staffed by "lawyer-lite"?
There will be the usual sanctimonious moans from people saying that £175.24 a day is a lot of money and why should these people more than that? But ask them this: when you are accused of murder and need a barrister to defend you, or have your heart attack and need a doctor to treat you, will you be happy with the paraprofessional who got 75% in the mining exams? Then they will want the best and to get the best they will have to pay. It is all a question of having the Latin and passing the rigourous exams. Not everyone can do that.
Labels: crown prosecution service, dumbing down, lawyer-lite
18 Comments:
Dr C,
I have just passed Clinical finals...there was a distinct lack of Latin :(
Rigour...indeed...Latin..lack of.
Then again i got to sneak a bit of Greek in so not all bad eh.
At least i avoided the comfy pillows.
ah..but you are not a judge!
John
And the dumbing down continues.
You may have heard that we GPs in Northern Ireland have been spared extended hours (for this year at least), but the same money has been taken off us but we have been offered a different way to re-earn it, a new Enhanced Service focussing on the clinical things which were originally proposed for this year, osteoporosis, heart failure and "problem drinking" (even harder to define than alcoholism)
But here's the catch, it will cost the average practice £15000 in extra nursing time to screen patients, manage to protocol etc. to earn back £10000.
Ah but don't employ nurses is the reply from the Health department, train one or two of your receptionists to be Health Care Assistants and they will be cheap enough to allow us to get the work done cheaply and you GPs to still make a profit.
Thankfully we have walked away.
I wonder will the English Health Department be represented by real lawyers or by paralegals when it meets the BMA again in court about the latest breaking our contracts?
I know :(
Mum is so disappointed.
A son who ended up a medic...the neighbours will talk.
I do wonder how much harder law could have been than medicine?
Maybe i have found my level :)
Houseplant status and venflon monkey to look forward to now.
I am one of those "paraprofessionals" (a registered nurse) and I worry a lot about the government (mine, yours, whoever’s) issuing protocols and "best practice standards" to my profession. The needs of the patient are totally ignored in these decrees. The patient does not need a "mini-doc" at the bedside. He needs a nurse. The patient needs a real doctor to doctor him, and a real nurse to nurse him. Blurring the distinctions may be cheaper, but, as with so many things, it is cheaper because it is worth less. Cheaper is fine when producing costume jewelry or paperback books, but in healthcare, hmmm, not so good.
I guess my problem is that I am so ignorant and stupid that I actually think that what nurses bring to the bedside (as NURSES) is useful in helping the patient get better, and therefore, worth preserving. Ah, but who cares what a dumb nurse thinks. I mean, we just provide the care. We can't possibly be as wise as a government bureaucrat who would faint at the sight of blood.
Yes, "funnypseudonym" - according to the late Peter Cook "you have to have the Latin for the judgin'"... Mind you, in the same skit he also defined the difference between a Judge and a Coalminer as "..if you're a miner and get old and go barmy they sack you, but for a Judge it seems to be a career-enhancing move". :-)
I think it is a real diservice to drs to compare them with lawyers ..
the govt is full of lawyers .. they call themselves politicians .. so lawyers will always be ok ...
in fact i think law is the most ridiculous profession ,,, as the law is an ass ... anyone that thinks otherwise is brain washed !
disservice i meant
hilst I entirely agree that this is a joke, I'd like to tackle the "But ask them this: when you are accused of murder and need a barrister to defend you, or have your heart attack and need a doctor to treat you, will you be happy with the paraprofessional" bit.
Of course you are right, in both cases I'd want the full fledged professional. (Oh, £175 day is bugger all)
But, if I wanted my blood pressure medication titrated or need some advice on a civil legal matter, do I need the professional or will the "paraprofessional" be able to deal with my issue quickly and more cost effectively?
In my opinion, this is is the role of these "noctors/notlawyers" that you so deride. Not ALL of this is dumbing down, some of this is a sensible way to make better use of limited government resources.
Remember before the slating begins, I'm no government apologist and agree with many of your positions.
I have two daughters; one is about to qualify as a solicitor, the other as a doctor. I'll leave them to fight it out as to which is the harder.
Dr C - are you a medical dr ? If so have you ever heard of a condition called wastatimeandeffortaitis ?
Its something about writing blogs bit like some others I know of but wondered if you had the condition spreading around near you? It is reported to be highly contagious as if you are a medically trained dr you will already know!
No latin anymore ... not allowed to use it in court.
One eminent judge's daughter always wanted to be a doctor. When she was in her A'level year at school she declared, to her father's delight, that she had changed her mind and that she wanted to become a lawyer, a barrister even. Delighted dad, a member of the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, asked what had made her change her mind ... she answered that she didn't believe that she was clever enough to become a doctor - so condemning her father's glittering career to second class status.
The difficulty with legal aid fees is real. When I started in practice 10 years' ago, about 1/3 of my work was legally aided (my practice is in civil cases, principally concerned with property and insolvency). Today, I take on a case pro bono about every 3 months ... and perhaps one case on legal aid every 6 months. The problem is that the circumstances in which people are entitled to civil legal aid are now so circumsribed that in reality only those on benefits are entitled to assistance ...
In criminal cases, the problem is that the Government is being entirely unrealistic about what should be paid - they complain that the cases at the top end swallow too much cash; and then restrict payments to very little ... the payments are gross - so expenses must be covered out of the fees paid.
As I have asked on my blog - why was this convicted criminal not permitted to use some of his assets to pay for proper defence as he would were this a civil freezing order? The asnwer appears to lie in the absurd laws passed by this increasingly absurd Government ... but then I am biased!
Let's be clear on one thing: Doctors and Lawyers - comparable professions, complete with intellectual demand, competition, training and responsibility.
Teachers - not in the least bit comparable. I can't find the figures now, but it is extremely difficult to NOT get a place on the one-year PGCE course. I don't want to turn this into an atack on teachers, but the intellectual rigour they are subjected to is negligible when held alongside law and medicine. I've heard some teachers claim that they are equal professions, usually justified by the fact that there is a degree of post-grad training. I'm afraid these people are absurdly deluded.
So where would an "nhspenpusher" fit into the hierarchy of professions? I think it's unfair to tar all teachers with the same brush. Some are poorly qualified in relation to doctors and lawyers, but many science teachers for example have higher degrees. Another thing; law and veterinary lecturers in universities are paid considerably less than clinical lecturers, so law and medicine are not considered to be comparable in the education sector
Comparing different professions is entertaining but ultimately silly ... there are brilliant teachers who subjectively are more valuable to the community that they serve than any lawyer or doctor ... that doesn't mean that the community pays that teacher more or the doctor or lawyer less.
My understanding was that, of the medical professions, the vets were required to have the best results, the doctors in second place. As I understand it, whilst a vet is licensed to use his or her skills on a human, it would be an offence for a doctor to use his or her skills on a dog.
Entertaining though this is, it tells us very little save that the vets, who need to know about different animals, have that knowledge recognised in law.
As to pay, it is the salesmen and fund managers that walk away with the spoils ...
"So where would an "nhspenpusher" fit into the hierarchy of professions?"
Fairly near the bottom I think, somewhere between pharma rep and fungus!
One of my oldest and closest friends is a teacher, and he's superb. Many are. But the demands made at entry level and the level of professional training are not comparable.
I may be a bit biased - I was [I]almost[/I] a barrister. And it wasn't my noggin that held me back either ;)
"As to pay, it is the salesmen and fund managers that walk away with the spoils ..."
In a capita;ist society this is inevitable, the salesman and fund manager CREATE wealth and EARN the spoils they receive from that. Contrast that with the NHS doctors who need a trade union, the BMA, to screw as much money as they can from the taxpayer.
Don't be bloody ridiculous. Healthcare in the UK doesn't operate as a free market economy, supply and demand isn't allowed to dictate. If doctors operated in a frre market they would earn a killing.
Your concept of wealth creation is a little rudimentary to say the least. People VALUE their health and would pay through the nose for it if that was the only option.
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