Would you support the doctors' strike.

In what way are the medical profession not in the 21st Century? I would have though with all the developments in medicine they have had to cope with they are certainly ahead of most of us Av1dreader

Nothing to do with the medical side of it. It is their outdated employment contracts

It still all comes down to money though doesn't it? The junior doctors want more, the consultants want more, the nurses want more, the bloody teachers want more....... Where is it all going to come from?

For the record my GP surgery is most definitely open on a Saturday morning until 1pm, my NHS dentist is too.

I am not sure that it is really about the money at heart. I think it is about Hunt taking them for a ride and making monkeys of them.

The research that concluded that more deaths occur out of hours has been shown to be flawed, so the premise upon which this new contract has been drawn up is meaningless.

It is not just about money for this current tranche of junior doctors, but about the future of the NHS - about keeping medical staff here, rather than watching them sail off to other countries where they are treated with respect.

The whole sorry argument has come about because once again (as with teaching) policy has been made on the hoof from flawed evidence (or indeed no evidence at all) and is just a political gesture to show how tough they can be. Gove (as education secretary) gave us all sorts of nonsense that appeared to have been drawn up on the back of a drinks coaster in the pub - this is just another example.

I do not buy the argument that just because former generations of junior doctors worked dangerously long hours (as indeed my OH did) then new generations should suffer the same fate. I fully grasp that one of the outcomes of better working hours has been a loss of opportunity to learn, but that simply means that medical education should be overhauled to make sure that the curriculum and work experience is fully covered without exploiting the junior doctors.

Well said Luckygirl.
gillybob, from your posts it's obvious you work hard but is it necessary to refer to teachers as "bloody teachers"? Most teachers, like you, work very hard, work long hours. If they were paid an hourly rate, I suspect it would be much less than the current minimum wage.
Public servants of all kinds seem to be demonised in much the same way that immigrants and so called benefit scroungers are by some of the media and general public. What's the point of that I wonder.

Iam as I think you probably already know it was a turn of phrase. Although I can say that some of the teachers in my DGD's school are " bloody " terrible ! Thank
goodness they are moving schools in September .

I have 2 friends who are teachers . Both are very happy with their excellent wage. ( their words) and their amazingly long holidays, spent with their families . Neither are on " minimum wage" .

We have less doctors per head than most other countries in Europe, and not enough junior doctors to cover all the shifts in hospitals properly. If it is about pay it is about paying enough to retain enough numbers to keep the NHS functioning properly. The junior doctors are well aware of all the problems and have said that many of them will leave because the service will not be safe under the new contract.
Does anyone seriously think that Junior doctors are well paid for what they do?

iam64The world is now run by accountants and managers who do not understand and could not do any of the tasks central to whatever the core business is. They 'manage' people who are skilled experts and these kind of people are very difficult to bamboozle. So there is some evidence that, particularly in public sector organisations, and particularly where the staff have public support, management carries out a destructive campaign designed to damage public support and community spirit among staff. Then new priorities are set, easy to quantify but not necessarily central to the business, new contracts are imposed and we all suffer. Except the Chief Executives, Vice Chancellors, heads of chains of academies and other such people, gillybob who now receive really disgustingly high salaries in comparison with the people who do the core work and have been on frozen pay for some years.

Teacher recruitment and doctor recruitment are both below targets at the moment, so something is radically wrong. If more pay is the answer wouldn't it be better to pay up so that we have enough staff to keep things running?

No I didn't know that "bloody teachers" was a turn of phrase.

I agree with Lilygran and trisher on this issue. Heads of Academies, VC's CEO's all earn huge salaries but ordinary class room teachers don't. trisher makes the point that teacher/doctor/(add social worker) recruitment are below targets which suggests all is far from well.

I don't think it's only pay that is an issue though. The mantra of public service bad, privatisation good has been a theme in recent years with public servants undermined and devalued.

I agree with you, Iam.
There are six teachers in my family, and all of them would get out because of the way they are looked at by the government and its admirers.

Teaching assistants who quite often take whole classes even though not qualified are payed less than shop assistants.

If it was just about money, heaven help education and the NHS.

When I was a bloody teacher, I once worked out my hourly rate and it was less than shop worker. But that was when there was a minimum rate for shopworkers, negotiated by the union.

I've just realised that there are 22 pages about this, and some people still think it's just about money!

Were you a "bloody" good teacher or a "bloody" rubbish one though durhamjen?

In my DGC's school there are quite a few of the latter and sadly only one or two of the former. I believe that the new school they will be going to has lots of "bloody" good teachers which probably reflects their excellent ofsted report.

So are you saying that if the doctors were offered s massive pay rise they would still strike ? Somehow I doubt it .

Tried to put a smiley st the end of my first paragraph but stupid "bloody" iPhone wouldn't let me. :-)

My daughter is rated an outstanding teacher, as are several of her contemporaries and friends of mine who have been teaching 35 years plus or are recently retired.
Without exception they love their work and loathe the amount of unnecessary paperwork. All the public servants I know and have worked with, accept we are accountable and have no problem with ongoing assessment/oversight of our work. I remain unconvinced that Ofsted is improving the classroom experience for many of our children.

A primary school I know very well has an intake of 1000 pupils. it sits in an area designated at the highest deprivation of the city. The school has been forced to become an academy, the head teacher who raised the school from special measures to good/outstanding squeezed out and a super head appointed. the super head also manages the sister school in the academy chain. That means 2000 pupils and a very large staff group. I won't go on (and on and on) but will simply say staff moral is at an all time low, sickness rates are very high and discipline is an increasing problem. Staff are resigning without jobs to go to.

In social work, teaching and the NHS people working for agencies are paid at a higher rate than permanent staff. Yes of course, they lack the security of a permanent contract but they can (and do) leave at the first sign of stress. trisher put it well when she said all is not well.

It would depend on who you asked, gillybob, as with most teachers.
Didn't have ratings when I was teaching. However, it was always disheartening when a new cohort was called the best ever by whoever the new head of the department of education happened to be.

According to Hunt, gillybob, the junior doctors have been offered a massive pay rise, 13.5%, I think.
However, it is only money moved about in the NHS, as there is no new money in the offer. So if one junior doctor gets more for his/her change of hours, another one gets less. That's not fair, is it?

I think it is quite easy to judge a good teacher. Durhamjen even with out official ratings.

Do the children like them?
Do they make lessons interesting or do they just go through the motions?
Do they encourage the children to find out more?
Do they attend work all year or are they on and off "the sick" most of the time?
Do they walk around their classroom and talk to their class or do they plant themselves in their chair and show red and amber cards when the children dare to speak and wonder how they are so fat? (Oops maybe that one was too personal)
Are they easily approachable by parents and children alike?
Do the children do well in their class?

There are many other ways to "mark" a good teacher and destinquish a good one from a "bloody" awful one.

Are we speaking of good or poor teachers or bloody teachers

All of the above Anniebach. Although the "bloody" joke is wearing a wee bit thin now methinks .

Sorry I haven't read all the argumenst for/against on this thread but I feel that any person employed in essential services should never consider going on strike.
I don't consider teachers an 'essential' service by the way, imo these are doctors, firefighters, police etc..

Teachers not essential?

Better close the schools down then, and see what happens.
I presume you taught all your children at home, Greymary.

fullfact.org/health/junior-doctors-nhs-and-european-unemployment-factchecking-prime-ministers-questions/

Most of today's PMQs was about the NHS.
Jeremy Hunt has been in trouble today for using figures which were not avaiable to everyone in the public domain.
The main point of argument in the junior doctors dispute is about weekend working and excess deaths because there are not enough doctors on call at the weekend.
Corbyn mentioned 6000; Cameron said it was 11000.
The 11000 figure is from people who have died within 30 days of being in hospital on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
Since when was the weekend longer than the working week?
Nobody ever includes Monday as part of the weekend, unless, of course, they want to manipulate the figures.
The only people who have a four day weekend are MPs.

I don't support them