Healthcare. Is this he thin edge of the wedge?

They would only do that Aveline if you were due a smear test anyway.

We have three doctors in our family. One works in a hospital and works normal full time hours. Two work in GP practices and work three days a week each. One hasn't reached his 30th birthday yet and the other is early to mid 30's. My sister also works in a GP practice and says all/nearly all the GPs are part time. This is endemic throughout Scotland, I can't speak for the rest of the UK. I realise this is only one practice but they are earning so much money that they don't need to work full time. Personally, I feel that they should be asked/made to sign an agreement that they will work full time to pay something back to the country who pays their student fees. I realise they have expenses other than fees that they/their families have to support them but surely students like that should be made to agree to some sort of full time service to pay back the support of taxpayers. Needless to say. I have never broached this subject with any of them and I do believe that all students should have free education but they need to pay back or is that a boomer thing?

Wouldn’t be so bad if student medical school places weren’t capped. I’m sure I read that recently.
Why are they?
Space, tuition etc I suppose when I think about it but surely somehow, now so many young doctors are electing to work part time, numbers ought to be ‘uncapped’ somehow?

stewaris I don’t think they get their training free these days.
I am prepared to be corrected.

stewaris where on earth did you get the completely incorrect information from that the government pays the university fees of doctors? Medical students pay their own university fees of £9000 per year for four years. The fourth year and subsequent years of training the student doctors do not pay fees as they are working for no pay on the wards alongside qualified doctors. Why do you think that the government pays their fees? They don’t!

Unfortunately there is a lot of ignorance around about doctors, the training of doctors, and GPs.

Well we agree on one thing maddyone. There is no way I would have gone home even if it was 22 hours. But she's my neighbour and a good friend so I didn't say anything but tried not to look shocked when she told me the next day.

Apologies I should have made it clear I was talking about Scotland where the fees are heavily subsidised. For Scotland the fees are £1820 throughout your degree and £9250 for the rest of the UK. Fees in Scotland are only for home students.

I should have also added the number of Scottish students at Scottish universities are capped due to the funding supplied by the Scottish Government.

I think there's a huge misunderstanding, not only about the length of training, the level of debt that most doctors have when they start to earn and the subsequent lack of autonomy they have over their lives whist they are continuing their specialist training which usually continues for 10+ years post graduation. Their basic starting pay is not much more than that of a teacher or nurse. It is a very stressful career and there are many more highly paid careers that would enable people to have a better work/life balance. I don't think the answer to the shortage of doctors is to make their life more difficult or punitive, nor is it about paying them more or insisting they "pay their debt to society" by restrictive contracts of employment. How's about finding out why so many doctors (especially GPs) are demoralised and try to fix some of those issues to they enjoy their jobs more.

Just to add, a GP's FT contract is 8 sessions a week, that would normally translate into 4 long days, so a GP working 3 days would be on a 75% contract, however it's possible that this could translate into a FT contract if they are doing morning, afternoon and evening sessions (and they are probably doing their paperwork at home in their own time).

sazz1

Well we agree on one thing maddyone. There is no way I would have gone home even if it was 22 hours. But she's my neighbour and a good friend so I didn't say anything but tried not to look shocked when she told me the next day.

You’ve answered my point from a different thread sazz1 but we understand what we’re talking about, it’s just that others won’t. I totally understand why it was difficult for you to comment when you’re friend told you, but I think I might have expressed an opinion. I think anyone who won’t wait at a hospital for eight hours with a child with suspected meningitis is very irresponsible, because despite the long wait, the parent and child were at least in a hospital where should the child have taken a turn for the worse suddenly, then they were in the right place. The GP Practice is never the right place for a child with suspected meningitis because they will simply send for an ambulance or send the parent to hospital, whichever is the quicker. The GP will understand the urgency of the situation and act accordingly. Your friend was extremely irresponsible to take her child home and leave her child without any prospect of any treatment overnight, because a more serious situation might easily have developed. And I also think your friend is out of order to complain about a lack of care because she absented herself and her child from the place where she would have received care. Had a very serious situation developed, then the parent would have been responsible for anything that transpired, but doubtless she would have blamed everyone else except herself.