Junior doctors strike

I believe junior doctors have had a 6% pay rise, to be followed by 3%.
I do not support their strike at all.

I agree completely.
Dog walkers charge much more for an hour than we pay our junior doctors. Same with cleaners, gardeners and more.

I had a procedure at our local hospital on Saturday. It was cancelled in early December as one doctor was off sick. Re-arranged for 12 days later on the basis further investigations moved me from the 2 week possible cancer path, to ‘urgent’.
The surgeon was not employed by our trust but brought in to cover this hastily re-arranged clinic.
I needed sedation, so surgeon, heart monitor etc. the nurses included two from Ghana, one from Nigeria, One from Malawi and one from India. There were two local white British nurses involved. My surgeon and the anaesthetist were Egyptian.

This government’s focus on lowering immigration is bonkers. Without immigrants our NHS and care system would collapse. Our young doctors go to other Northern European countries, Australia, New Zealand, more money and treated with respect

If the Government wanted to end this strike they could. They don't want to because they want the public to blame the doctors and pave the way for privatisation.

I am rapidly approaching my mid 70s and for the very first time ever I have been 'asked to leave' ie. bounced from a party. (I was not drunk)
I was at a Christmas drinks do with neighbours and had put up with over half an hour, it seemed longer, of 'greedy junior doctor' talk. I had maintained a vacant but not unpleasant look on my face and not said anything. Finally, I snapped when a retired local estate agent piped up with "Its about time they started thinking about the welfare of their patients and not about lining their pockets". This from a man who made his, not inconsiderable, fortune during various property booms. Let's just say I will not be invited next year and will be ignored by most of my neighbours from now on. I am seriously thinking of moving next year; I shall try and avoid using an estate agent if I do.

£3,000 is what MP’s could get next year, recommended by the Independent Pay Board.

It is not set in stone.

I think Doctors should be paid more, but asking for 38% is over the top in my opinion.

Sometimes you just have to say it don't you Bumface Well done . Quite an achievement being bounced from a party for the first time

People overlook the value of doctors’ pensions - they remain what is now a rare thing, a defined benefit pension whereby what you are paid in retirement is based on your earnings. The NHS contributes just over 20% of a doctor’s salary to his pension. What other employer does that? Perhaps the NHS should stop contributing to pensions and give them extra pay instead - they can’t expect to have it both ways .
I don’t support the doctors’ demands - 38% is ridiculous but they won’t budge, and to hell with the patients.

That's very interesting GSM I didn't know that, and your suggestion that having that money given as pay instead of going towards their pensions is a good one.

I agree that a 38% demand is ridiculous.

People may think junior doctors are being offered enough but all those vacancies tell a different story. With their university fees outstanding, Australia are rubbing their hands with glee. The government since 2010 want private health to replace the NHS.

I’m going to be outspoken like bumface, and good for you bumface for speaking out. The reason most people don’t want junior doctors to strike is this, they simply want the doctor to be there just exactly when they require them to be there. If we want that, an on demand service pretty much whenever we want it, we need to be prepared to pay for it and to employ sufficient doctors. Don’t pay doctors enough and there’ll be fewer doctors here. It’s called supply and demand.
Re the pensions, how many people know that the terms of doctor’s pensions have been radically changed/reduced in recent years? Probably not many, because doctor’s pensions aren’t a topic of conversation very often. Incidentally, as a matter of interest, teacher’s pensions have also been devalued by government, so the professional pension I retired on as a teacher, which was based on my final salary, is no longer available to teachers retiring today, instead my niece, also a teacher, has much less favourable terms when she eventually claims her teacher pension. Exactly the same has happened to doctors pensions. Judges however, have a very beneficial pension after some twenty years of service, also paid out by the public purse. Judges of course, have extremely specialised knowledge. What? Doctors have extremely specialised knowledge too? Well who knew?

Judges are the equivalent of senior consultants, not junior doctors.

Germanshepherdsmum

Judges are the equivalent of senior consultants, not junior doctors.

Agreed.
But on their way to becoming a judge, barristers, including junior barristers, earn huge amounts of money. In fact, far more than a judge gets paid. But doctors don’t remain junior doctors forever and when they retire, their pension benefits have been seriously reduced. We were talking about pensions, if we want to compare a junior doctor, who may well be training for upwards of 15 years, to a junior barrister, then the barrister is laughing all the way to the bank compared with doctor.

I don’t agree with doctors striking. As far as I’m concerned it’s against their Hippocratic Oath. I also don’t agree with all the money we see wasted in the NHS on such things as equality and diversity officers - not only do they get paid large amounts but no doubt have a palatial office and staff and are busy writing out the word women. Meanwhile back at the coal face doctors and nurses are beavering away. Junior doctors will, of course, have huge houses and big posh cars once they become consultants which nurses won’t get.

Not all barristers and solicitors who go on to become judges earn huge amounts of money. It very much depends on the field in which they specialise. As you will know, those who do a lot of criminal legal aid work, an essential public service, are very poorly paid. And they all have to fund their own pensions, being self-employed, as I did. No employer to contribute until you are elevated to the bench.

No strikes here our NHS settlement was made in July I believe and was@ '17.5% over 2 years for doctors and dentists.Get yourselves a goverment that will TALK and sort things out.

Perhaps I ought to tell you Avalon that doctors don’t swear the Hippocratic Oath any longer. That hasn’t been required nor practiced for years.

GSM I don’t disagree with what you say. However, the fact remains that the earnings of most junior barristers far, far, outstrip the earnings of junior doctors. When my son went to Bar School he was given a grant towards the costs from his Inn of Court. When he did his pupillage, he was given an award from the chambers he later worked at, which generous and tax free.
When my daughter trained as a doctor, she got nothing.
In fact, it cost us, her parents, about £60,000 to put her through her six years of medical school in London.

paddyann54

No strikes here our NHS settlement was made in July I believe and was@ '17.5% over 2 years for doctors and dentists.Get yourselves a goverment that will TALK and sort things out.

paddyann you and I rarely agree, but on this, I agree with you entirely.

Wear your ostracism with pride Bumface.

I agree with maddyone. I have doctors in my family and one has already left the NHS and the other is seriously thinking of leaving too.
We can't afford to keep losing doctors from the NHS so they need to be paid better.

Welsh Junior doctors have just voted to strike. 65% turnout and 98% for a strike.

I have no idea why no idea why the govt offered a better deal to consultants in England, unless they thought they could use the bread today but jam tomorrow argument against the junior doctors. Interesting to see it's already been used on here! Problem is the consultants of now did not have massive debts when they came out of university, they didn't have the housing costs of junior doctors as they could live on site and the job was much less stressful as wards were properly staffed.
I think dr daughter pays 8% pension contribution, 9% student loan, medical insurance + costs of exams and extra training costs. Her last lots of exams were nearly £2,000? Not sure of exact amount but I remember being horrified. Market forces do reign even in medicine, one of her friends an A&E reg has trained to do botox and finds it more lucrative to work part time in the NHS and work 2 days a week in a clinic! she has a mortgage to pay!

My son is a junior doctor just completed his F2 year and taking a year out to decide if he really wants to carry on with this, picking up temporary contract here and there. He is 25 years old, has £95k of student debt and lives in a grotty HMO room in a ( frankly) grotty town in the Midlands. He had to take the train to work in the next county for the last 2 years as he couldn't find affordable HMOs that would allow him to have a short contract and move every 4 months. He pays so much in training costs, indemnities and insurance, he can't afford driving lessons so he is often walking back from 12/13 hour days through unsafe areas at midnight. He was once so tired he walked into a lamppost. My heart is breaking for him as this is what he always wanted to do, he has done exceptionally well on his rotations and is a fine doctor. He actually wanted to specialise in Geriatrics but I'm not sure that will ever happen now.

I’m surprised your son pays for his indemnity insurance - if he works solely for the NHS they arrange cover, even if he works as a locum. He only has to arrange his own cover if he is working other than solely for the NHS.

Bumface

I am rapidly approaching my mid 70s and for the very first time ever I have been 'asked to leave' ie. bounced from a party. (I was not drunk)
I was at a Christmas drinks do with neighbours and had put up with over half an hour, it seemed longer, of 'greedy junior doctor' talk. I had maintained a vacant but not unpleasant look on my face and not said anything. Finally, I snapped when a retired local estate agent piped up with "Its about time they started thinking about the welfare of their patients and not about lining their pockets". This from a man who made his, not inconsiderable, fortune during various property booms. Let's just say I will not be invited next year and will be ignored by most of my neighbours from now on. I am seriously thinking of moving next year; I shall try and avoid using an estate agent if I do.

Impressive..so courageous You hold your head high...

My daughter has always paid for insurance, it’s taken as a condition of being in the BMA, and it’s a lot of money. She has always paid for courses and to sit exams. It costs a lot of money, often in the thousands, as GE correctly says. Although she’s currently living and practicing in New Zealand, she still has those costs, and after starting her training at eighteen, and starting practicing medicine at twenty four, at nearly forty one she is still doing courses, and paying for them. She currently works full time as a GP, she works extra shifts in ED (equivalent to our A+E) and she works from home for a private menopause clinic, which of course is paid much better than the public work she does. She is also currently taking an advanced course on managing the menopause. She is still studying. It never stops because all doctors must remain informed about all advances in medicine in their specialties.