Junior Doctors strike

Incidentally, many, many barristers choose not to become KC. They may sometimes choose to become a judge, or not, or indeed both. And additionally, barristers earn a very great deal more than doctors, junior or otherwise.

I have no idea why this came to mind.
"In Lady Windemere's Fan, Oscar Wilde had Lord Darlington quip that a cynic was 'a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. ' As with so much of what Wilde wrote or said, it's more than just a nice turn of phrase – it hits at the heart of the problems of society."

Germanshepherdsmum

Was your daughter able to work entirely unsupervised as soon as she graduated with her doctorate maddyone?

Often she was working alone, especially at night. Often she was the only doctor covering several wards, especially at night or weekends.
Of course Consultants hold the senior positions and therefore much of the responsibility. But yes, she worked with life/death situations, as all doctors do.

growstuff Eh? So why doesn't increasing doctors' pay increase the amount of tax they pay?

All taxes, including doctors' tax totals will surely go up. Who has said that taxes won't increase?

Thank you Fleurpepper. I’m proud of my daughter, but also of both my sons, who have also achieved well but are not doctors.

But the buck didn’t stop with her, rather like trainee lawyers who have passed all their exams and do a lot of work but are not fully qualified.

Oh yes, I knew but had forgotten that your DH was a dr Fleurpepper. So he trained at UCH, I’m assuming that is what is now called UCL, part of the University of London and has a variety of different courses, not just Medicine.

I have a daughter who is a Clinical Nurse Manager in a large NZ hospital. She left the NHS reluctantly due to poor pay and (especially) conditions. She works with large numbers of medical staff from the UK and the numbers are increasing since Covid. We need to ensure that we retain existing staff and in order to do that we need to pay them fairly. My cleaner gets £17.50 an hour and no-ones life depends on her doing her job well. We really can’t afford, as a country, not to give our NHS staff the pay and conditions they need in order to feel valued.

Figures from the General Medical Council show the number of medics obtaining a certificate that allows them to work abroad has risen by 25 per cent in a year.

Last year, there were 6,950 applications from UK doctors who are registered and licensed, up from 5,576 in 2021 – with around a quarter targeting Australia.

One of the country’s largest acute hospitals has just offered 200 jobs after a recent recruitment drive, amid growing concerns about an exodus of healthcare workers from the UK.

It comes after a poll of 4,500 junior doctors in England found one in three intended to work abroad next year, with Australia and New Zealand the most popular.
Telegraph Jan 2023

The buck does stop with the Junior doctor indeed- working alone in the middle of the night exhausted! They can get sued for negligence just like any other doctor- and there is NO-ONE holding their hand in the middle of the night. Consultants make it very clear that they are NOT to be disturbed! With respect GSM, you have not a clue about the realities out there for Junior docs.

Germanshepherdsmum

Was your daughter able to work entirely unsupervised as soon as she graduated with her doctorate maddyone?

My dd certainly did so. She is part of the so-called Covid Cohort who graduated early in 2020 in order to be deployed into the NHS. Within weeks she and just one other FY1 doctor were caring for approx 250 patients on 13hr overnight shifts in an acute hospital.

There would be a more senior doctor somewhere in the hospital but as s/he could not be in two places at once, these newly qualified doctors simply had to sink or swim in the system and hope no one came to harm.

My son, after achieving a first class degree in Jurisprudence from Oxford University, worked abroad for two years, and then worked a year at the Law Society, followed by a year at Bar School (he received a large grant/bursary to cover costs for this year) and then was paid (well) whilst he did pupillage working under and with an experienced barrister. He then started working as a junior barrister and initially worked at tribunals, progressing to more complex cases and longer cases and enjoying a substantial increase in his hourly rate each year. Not so my daughter, responsible for life and death decisions from year one, when working alone in the hospital at night.

I’m very proud of both of them, and also their brother, but I know who has consistently earned the higher amounts. And it’s not the doctor, despite her training and expertise.

Indeed, both our daughters, having seen their dad work such long hours, including 1 night in 3 or 4, on top of very long hours- for relatively low salary decided to go in Sales and Financial Services, and earn much much higher salaries and without the very long hours, nights and weekends. They have huge respect and admiration for their dad, but it was very clear they would never wish to do what he did.

As for being a teacher like mum! Oh they laughed 'no way'!!!

choughdancer

As lixy says, 'junior doctors' is a misleading term, and I think it should be removed or changed to reflect what they do. 'Junior' inevitably suggests 'lesser' or 'lower' in rank, as if they are not really quite proper doctors yet!

Yes, it really is a misnomer and fairly recent, I think.

It encompasses those who are qualified doctors, have foundation training and sometimes years of experience and include grades up to Consultant.
They include Senior House Officers and Registrars.

What is the terminology currently. It used to be

Houseman
Senior Houseman (SHO)
Registrar
Senior Registrar

maddyone

Oh yes, I knew but had forgotten that your DH was a dr Fleurpepper. So he trained at UCH, I’m assuming that is what is now called UCL, part of the University of London and has a variety of different courses, not just Medicine.

The Medical School was always called UCH. He lived in Halls, it was pretty dire and basic then!

Norah

growstuff Eh? So why doesn't increasing doctors' pay increase the amount of tax they pay?

All taxes, including doctors' tax totals will surely go up. Who has said that taxes won't increase?

Nobody said it, but I don't understand why bankers' increases can be justified but doctors' increases can't. The same argument applies to their salaries.

Fleurpepper

What is the terminology currently. It used to be

Houseman
Senior Houseman (SHO)
Registrar
Senior Registrar

Junior doctor. That’s it. It applies to everyone who is not a consultant, even if they’ve worked in the NHS for 30 years and have shedloads of experience.

Interestingly, my dd says staff use the old terms informally to denote hierarchy, as in ‘Go and ask X, she’s a senior.’

I think it was decided to refer to all non-consultants as juniors so that patients wouldn’t demand to see a senior registrar rather than a houseman.

The government doesn’t pay the bankers growstuff.

Two factors to add to this discussion: if all the current public sector pay demands were met, what would income tax need to rise to? And when comparing public and private sector salaries shouldn’t pension rights be taken into account? Final salary schemes hardly exist in the private sector now.

I agree that £14 per hour for a trainee doctor is derisory, but pay is more than an hourly rate. I want to see a fair solution to the current crisis but the two questions I ask above have to be taken into consideration too.

It is ironic that we poach doctors which poorer countries have trained and now Australia and New Zealand poach ours!

GrannySomerset if all the current public sector pay demands were met, what would income tax need to rise to?

Great question.

Same question for childcare, who will pay, our taxes go up?

Germanshepherdsmum

The government doesn’t pay the bankers growstuff.

Why is that relevant in a discussion about keeping enough doctors in the country and the levels of responsibility and rubbish pay after 5 years hard professional training?

So whatever your job, however long you trained for it and however skilled you are at brain surgery, or treating cancer, helping people with mental health issues to see light at the end of the tunnel etc it doesn’t make you valuable because the government pays you?
Really?

And on a purely unemotional level, we need to pay doctors more in order to stop the brain drain.

A fully trained F1 gets £14 an hour, with a bit more for the extreme amount of overtime they do. I pay my cleaner £15 an hour!

The pay rate they are asking for is £19 an hour, not exactly unreasonable, given how much their pay has fallen in real terms. They are impossibly overstretched, and yet the Government is still capping the number of medical places at uni, so there is no hope of improvement in the future.