Surely it’s time for the government to talk properly to the doctors now. This has gone on long enough with no progress. We are losing doctors almost as fast as we train them to other countries where pay and conditions are better. MPs have just had a six thousand pound a year rise. Come on, let’s pay our doctors properly.
When the NHS was set up the aim was that consultants would work solely for the NHS and not undertake private work. Consultants said they would not join the NHS unless they could do private work as well, so this was permitted or else there would have been no NHS. ( I studied this as part of my IHSA exams) I guess th
I guess it’s the big carrot.
Do you not think junior doctors should be well paid?
Because that’s what this is about. Not whether or not consultants earn a lot of money (they don’t of course compared with other professions that are equivalent, and indeed many that are nowhere near equivalent) or whether consultants do private work.
Simple question, should we pay our doctors better?
Answer is yes, with none of the excuses being trotted out here.
Germanshepherdsmum
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.
Doctors pay their own as Maddyone says it's a condition of being registered to practice. My daughter does some expedition medicine in her own time, working for a charity, she doesn't get paid but they do pay all her expenses including the extra insurance she needs because of the nature of the work. She loves her job as an anaesthetist but it can be very stressful, she says her "expedition work" which is often gruelling, helps her cope with the stress as when she's not working she's keeping herself super fit for the next trip! She is underpaid for the job she does, fortunately she didn't go into it for the money but fgs if we want a working NHS we need to pay people properly.
The Conservatives are supposed to trust the markets. Market forces are telling them that they need to pay more to attract and retain doctors.
Ilovecheese
The Conservatives are supposed to trust the markets. Market forces are telling them that they need to pay more to attract and retain doctors.
It's another Tory dodge to explain their failure with the NHS, It's all the fault of greedy doctors going on strike! What happened when the greedy bankers nearly bankrupted the country, they got bailed out and are once again getting huge bonuses for betting against our economy . Who made loads of money because of Truss and Kwarteng, the banks and all who sail in them. Who made money out of Covid? The likes of Mone. Pay doctors a decent wage, no we can't afford it, you need to go private. Totally sickening.
GPs and anyone not employed by and working solely for the NHS has to buy their own insurance. I have already said that the NHS pension scheme for doctors is very generous. Pay packages have to be considered as a whole. The doctors have had a reasonable offer. Whether anyone chooses to become a doctor, in full knowledge of the pay package, is entirely up to them.
My medic dd tells me that she knows a number of medics who are out of work unless they can pick up locum/bank jobs. The permanent and training posts are just not there, despite the govt saying there are so many vacancies. One single post in her Trust recently attracted over one thousand applications, two thirds of which were from abroad.
My dd has applied for a training post next year but who knows whether she’ll get one? Locum/bank work is precarious because you don’t know when work will be available plus banks/loans/mortgage people are very antsy about an irregular income.
The following are entirely down to the current doctors strike
My sympathy has run out, a poor little baby is in hospital, needs immediate treatment, but having to wait…
A close friend has just been phoned and told her operation tomorrow is now not going ahead…
Germanshepherdsmum
Judges are the equivalent of senior consultants, not junior doctors.
But people don’t retire as junior doctors. They retire as consultants or GPs.
The term junior Dr is misleading. In the main the doctors running the show in hospitals are junior doctors they are not asking for a pay increase, they are asking for pay restoration. Approx 40% of UK doctors are seeking posts in Australia. The government absolutely needs to find the money to reward and retain our doctors. They should be treated as a scare resource to be protected at all cost. I don't begrudge them their pensions either, they absolutely deserve them. What I do resent is the never ending list of cronies promoted to the Lords at £300 a day, the severance payments to ministers and the ridiculous ongoing payment to the likes of Liz Truss for her hard work as Prime Minister. There is plenty if government spending to get worked up about but doctors pay is not one of them.
My local hospital A&E Dept (Cheltenham General Hospital) will temporarily shut at various points during the coming weeks, we have been told.
My OH has had a few falls recently - the last was in the shower where he was prone across the shower rim for almost 6 hours (broken ribs).
I've warned him not to fall - he may not even get to A&E at all this time.
Dickens they are referring to the Gloucester Royal during the closure.
25Avalon
Dickens they are referring to the Gloucester Royal during the closure.
"Cheltenham A&E department closing or restricting treatment over Christmas and New Year due to junior doctors' strikes"
SKY NEWS! yesterday.
It's also in the MIRROR.
SueDonim
My medic dd tells me that she knows a number of medics who are out of work unless they can pick up locum/bank jobs. The permanent and training posts are just not there, despite the govt saying there are so many vacancies. One single post in her Trust recently attracted over one thousand applications, two thirds of which were from abroad.
My dd has applied for a training post next year but who knows whether she’ll get one? Locum/bank work is precarious because you don’t know when work will be available plus banks/loans/mortgage people are very antsy about an irregular income.
Absolutely correct, there is a shortage of training places. New graduates have failed to get an F1 training place and therefore can't work. DD passed her part 1 Anaesthetics and couldn't get a suitable part 2 training place and over 500 were in the same position! The govt is talking rubbish when they talk about training more doctors as they can't train the ones they already have coming through from Med school. Every trained doctor who moves abroad is a hugely expensive loss to the NHS as it stops the training potential for the graduates who are in the system. It is doctors who train doctors. Locum work is well paid and very expensive for the NHS but is not a training post so doesn't count towards progression. It is such a huge mess and most people just don't don't have a clue. DD said if she was following a medicine speciality, she'd almost certainly leave. Reason, these doctors spend a huge amount of time trying to get their patients a bed, trying to get patients out of hospital into more suitable care, trying to get patients the tests they need, chasing up the results of tests that have been done and a small amount of time actually being a doctor. It is not why these talented, clever young people went to medical school.
Germanshepherdsmum
GPs and anyone not employed by and working solely for the NHS has to buy their own insurance. I have already said that the NHS pension scheme for doctors is very generous. Pay packages have to be considered as a whole. The doctors have had a reasonable offer. Whether anyone chooses to become a doctor, in full knowledge of the pay package, is entirely up to them.
The NHS has an indemnity insurance to cover it's own costs from a negligence claim and which will pay up if one of their doctors is found guilty of negligence it does not, however, protect the individual doctor from potentially being found guilty of negligence and possibly being struck off. That is why doctors need their own insurance.
Dickens
25Avalon
Dickens they are referring to the Gloucester Royal during the closure.
"Cheltenham A&E department closing or restricting treatment over Christmas and New Year due to junior doctors' strikes"
SKY NEWS! yesterday.
It's also in the MIRROR.
25Avalon means that patients are being referred to GRH, not that is it GRH that’s closing.
FoghornLeghorn
Dickens
25Avalon
Dickens they are referring to the Gloucester Royal during the closure.
"Cheltenham A&E department closing or restricting treatment over Christmas and New Year due to junior doctors' strikes"
SKY NEWS! yesterday.
It's also in the MIRROR.25Avalon means that patients are being referred to GRH, not that is it GRH that’s closing.
That's a given - if you call an ambulance in 'normal' times,(though I've forgotten when that was), you are frequently transferred to the RGH instead of going to CG if there is a shortage of doctors, and after 8pm until 8am, almost all patients are sent to RGH when the CG unit is nurse-led. The department is overwhelmed constantly, and it would not surprise me if very soon it becomes a minor injuries only unit. But it was at least possible previously to get to A&E by car if you could arrange that.
And now the RGH is completely overwhelmed. The last time I was there, I spent the whole night in an ambulance - being treated by doctors coming into it at various intervals. I needed admission, but there were no available beds.
There was talk of closing Cheltenham A&E completely concentrating 'resources' at GRH - this might be the catalyst.
Sorry 25Avalon - I misunderstood your post!
Thank you foxie for your informative posts, and also thank you to the other parents who have con to this thread, and actually know what they are talking about. We are all patients, just like everyone on here, but we see and hear what our adult children tell us, and so we have a view of what is happening to doctors and to the health service that others do not have.
My daughter is currently in New Zealand, but she keeps abreast of what is happening in the NHS by being in a number of online doctor groups. Although she is so far away, she has told me about the lack of training places for doctors and how difficult it is to get work. She is a GP, fully trained and now very experienced. She has told me that it is becoming difficult to get a job as a GP in some areas in the UK. You may very well ask why since we have such a shortage of GPs, and the answer she tells me is that there is now a preference in some areas/surgeries to employ Nurse Practitioners instead of actual doctors, because presumably they are cheaper. She has also told me about the training of people who do not have a medical degree, for two years in hospitals, to work in specialties, instead of doctors doing the work. They have a name but I’ve forgotten what it was she called these people. What you do not know about how doctors are being replaced by non doctors, doing the work of doctors, is truly frightening.
Maddyone I think the link above is what you were referring to.
Thank you Greyisnotmycolour, you are exactly right. The name of the role is Physician Associate, and from what my daughter said, I don’t think doctors are impressed by the introduction of these people, who apparently will be expected to do much of the work of doctors. But they are not doctors. It is extremely frightening. I wish people would wake up and understand what is happening in our health service.
maddyone
Thank you Greyisnotmycolour, you are exactly right. The name of the role is Physician Associate, and from what my daughter said, I don’t think doctors are impressed by the introduction of these people, who apparently will be expected to do much of the work of doctors. But they are not doctors. It is extremely frightening. I wish people would wake up and understand what is happening in our health service.
I wish people would wake up and understand what is happening in our health service.
I couldn't agree more.
We seem to be a nation that complain about things when it's too late to take the action that might have prevented them from happening in the first place.
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.
Another "Meanwhile in Scotland" post which illustrates what can be achieved when you have a caring, pro active Government which on a tight, limited budget serves all the people rather than one which is all about profits, loopholes and tax cuts for the wealthy.
^NHS Jobs has tens of thousands of live vacancies every day in area of the NHS and across the country.
25,000 vacancies over 350 roles^.
The above are quotes from the NHS job site. Does this sound like a good employer with people queuing up for jobs? This is the true state of our health service. I worked for a good employer, our staff turnover was less than 2%, vacancies were like gold dust and filled instantly, we were always inundated with applicants.
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