Junior Doctors strike

seeing junior doctors picketing outside my hospital the other day I was surprised at the party atmosphere and behavior of them, they were akin to school children not responsible adults as you would expect doctors to be.

Quaver22

Doctors earn nothing until they are in their mid twenties as they are in university for 5 or 6 years. Many of them start working with thousands of pounds of student loans to repay.
They deserve to be paid well for the vital work they do.
We need to give them the increase they are asking for if we are to keep them in the UK.

Quite right Quaver. We spent approximately £10000 per year for six years to keep our daughter at university whilst doing her medical degree. She trained in London and so the rent, the tube fares, the books, the living/heating allowance, and the £1000 a year fees all added up to about the ten thousand mentioned. We were lucky because the university fees when she was studying were only £1000, but now they’re £9000. Imagine that, with all other monies necessary for a student to live. She still took out loans as she needed more, which she paid back over a number of years after graduation. Luckily we were both still working and she was our youngest child, although we were still supporting our son through Bar School although he luckily won a scholarship which paid the (then) £9000 fees. We had already put our two sons through university. Putting children through university is an expensive business, even more so today, and we are very ordinary people, both teachers.
Doctors should get their rise. Government finds plenty of money for things they want to spend on. We need our doctors, otherwise they’ll all disappear to distant shores, like my girl has done.

Doctors earn nothing until they are in their mid twenties as they are in university for 5 or 6 years. Many of them start working with thousands of pounds of student loans to repay.
They deserve to be paid well for the vital work they do.
We need to give them the increase they are asking for if we are to keep them in the UK.

In the 1960s my junior husband doctor was paid less than £2000 a year.
Posted abroad by the army in 1964 we were astounded to be earning more than £3000 p.a. in Singapore
Back to the UK as a g.p in '67 he was paid a little more but I was surprised that as a mother of 3 children under 4 that I was expected to feed the baby at night and also answer the phone requests for the doctor to make a visit.......one of these at 3 am and very angry saying that her daughter had a pimple on her nose' How long has she had it?'...'.About 2 weeks' ........ I was not paid for this service
Not sure where my sympathies lie.

Nannashirlz

I’d say yes you can have a pay rise when you got the waiting list down because I like many other have been waiting over two years for an appointment. I was offered one but you guessed it because of strikes it got cancelled and I’m on the waiting list again

In which case, Nannashirlz, waiting lists would get even longer as more and more NHS staff left because of poor pay.

Great to hear- back in the day, the 140 hours made no difference to salary.

But your friend won’t ever earn much more there will they? The £14 per hour is for doctors in their first year - and they are paid for every hour over the basic 40 that they work.

seadragon

I was shocked to discover so called 'Junior Doctors', even with several years experience, were payed less than I was as Medical Social Worker. They worked much longer hours and inimical shifts as well as having exams and studying to do throughout - not to mention paying for much of that as well. I have no doubt that they deserve better than this. 35% of a salary that is less than a social worker's is not a lot to ask for AT ALL!!!

Yes, doctors have to be assessed on a regular basis, and many continue to take courses and exams throughout their career, on top of their very long hours. GPs are regularly assessed too.

OH took courses and exams in obstetrics, pediatrics and acupuncture, in his own time and his own cost. He used the knowledge and experience he acquired for free, as he got no extra money on top of his yearly fee for doing so.

Junior doctors salary equates to £14 per hour.My friend gets more working at Costa Coffee. Enough said!!!?

I agree that our medical staff need improvements to their pay. How can the government afford this when it continues to give the NHS carte blanche to employ a host of executive and managerial staff in highly questionable positions (‘diversity’ champions, anyone?) at vastly inflated salaries?! Until this top heavy and inefficient layer is slimmed down considerably, then I do not see how we will be able to foot a higher wage bill for ‘real’ health staff. Unless of course we want to pay higher taxes to disappear into the black hole that is the NHS these days, to the detriment of other essential services.

I was shocked to discover so called 'Junior Doctors', even with several years experience, were payed less than I was as Medical Social Worker. They worked much longer hours and inimical shifts as well as having exams and studying to do throughout - not to mention paying for much of that as well. I have no doubt that they deserve better than this. 35% of a salary that is less than a social worker's is not a lot to ask for AT ALL!!!

I was diagnosed with Covid. Tested eventually negative but started to have difficulty breathing n was taken into A n E. No junior drs as all on strike but senior Consultants stepping in. I was looked after by both staff n X-ray people. The drs work so hard I really feel for them and the nurses. They do need a pay rise but not sure how much. I will say thank God for our NHS who are there for us when we need them urgently. One consultant told me 20 years working for nhs when was at the top n he said it’s gone right down since then. The X-ray woman said we all just have to keep going. It’s all costing the government a fortune as well.

Doctors aren’t paid by football clubs are they?

Junior doctors on approx £14/hour - that's appalling. They work incredibly long hours and are saving people's lives. The same goes for nurses and other medical staff, ambulance drivers, etc. Government must increase all their pay before they all up sticks and move to countries that pay a decent wage. Footballers earn obscene amounts of money. Why?

Having just done a little research it appears that 'Junior' doctors are paid anything between £29,384 and £58,398 p.a., and this after 7 years training! Would you be satisfied with this when a typical Tesco Manager's salary is £29,699 per year? I certainly wouldn't, particularly when you think of the hours they put in and the stress they are under, especially at present.

Personally I think they are worth every penny, and don't forget, if we have a serious accident, we'd be unlikely to survive without these wonderfully dedicated people, whereas a Tesco Manager would be unlikely to save you.

As for 'Googling' GrammyGrammy, well you're certainly free to do that, and if anyone else thinks the same way, then please go ahead and do so, but I don't give much for your chances!

Goodness, no one is saying bankers etc shouldn’t be well paid, and yes in our western economy, where we don’t really manufacture “stuff” anymore we really do rely on our financial services to keep our economy going… I’d argue the fact about “tax-payers” money though as tax-payers money was used to bail ou at least two consumer banks, albeit it was re-paid and sub-prime mortgages and acquisitions by banks had a huge impact on our financial services and economy.

Yes, they are indeed needed, valued and those generating the most profits quite rightly taking a share personally.

However, without our health this is meaningless and yes public sector workers do need to be held accountable for the “public-purse” - it’s quite sad that those making the most income for our country appear to be held in higher esteem than our health givers and educators - as I stated before I’m with the junior doctors, nurses and teachers. This particular government has managed to find money (tax-payers) for all kinds of questionable things across the last 13 years ! Cash to the French - standing at more than £400m to date, money on useless PPP, and cash to the DUPS are just three things which spring to mind which would probably have funded the rises for our deserving NHS staff and teachers for at least the next two years. Still the very recent budget shows us where their priorities lie !

The NHS has never paid doctors well.

In the 1950s my father was a GP with a fairly typical size of practice, He was paid £1 (yep! 20 shillings) per patient per year, which was nowhere near enough to support our family, pay heat, light and cleaning of his consulting-room and wating-room, petrol for the car, plus repairs. Some of this were deductable expenses with regards to Income tax, but not all of it was.

As long as there was National Service, he earned extra doing Medical Boards. When these were discontinued, he did extra work as Police Surgeon. He had a 60 hour working week, often more.

All this makes me feel that if young hospital doctors are asking for a 35% increase, they are being very moderate indeed in their demands. I hope they get their raise.

My mother worked too, much to the disgust of the practice who felt a doctor's wife should not be running a business from the family home. It was her only option, as she answered the practice phone - day and night.

My father had a weekend off once every six weeks and a fortnight's summer holiday, just for the record.

A huge % of doctors work part time for the NHS and probably more time privately and in research. We only have 2 full time GPs in our surgery but at least another 8 who work 1 or 2 days a week. It would be wonderful to get back to how it used to be when you could actually see your own doctor within a week or so. If that means a large increase in their salary, to make that possible, that will surely have to be so. At the moment we have up to 6 weeks wait to see any doctor.

Why are we expecting Dr’s to know as much as google! They do years of studying and know when to refer to more specialist colleagues. Could you compete with a computer.
I fully support their pay action and hope they get it!
Can’t believe some people’s comments and attitudes!

Yes I support them. More and more are leaving this country hence the shortage of Drs.
They are making life and death decisions daily.
They also have to pay professional fees each year. Who should be paid more a Doctor or footballer?

The lowest paid junior doctors earn the same hourly rate as a barista. This is an B appalling state of affairs. After years of training then the responsibility they take on, they deserve to be highly paid.

ronib

Casdon thank you for your clear reply. So do you know how many hours count as full time?

I wouldn’t embarrass the retired midwife by naming her!

Yes, if full time NHS they work a basic 37.5 hours per week, split over direct care sessions which are 4 hours (I.e. clinics, ward rounds, theatre etc.) and non-clinical, teaching, support activities etc. so 10 sessions would effectively be full time Monday-Friday, but additional evening sessions, weekend sessions and on call are paid above the contract hours.

I’d say yes you can have a pay rise when you got the waiting list down because I like many other have been waiting over two years for an appointment. I was offered one but you guessed it because of strikes it got cancelled and I’m on the waiting list again

GrannyGravy13

Glorianny

A bit of a misleading OP. The BMA estimates that Junior doctor's salaries have fallen in real terms by 26% and it would take a rise of 35% to maintain the level.
I support them. They are the hardest working and carry great responsibility.

Lots of folks salaries have fallen in real terms over the last few years, including my own. I couldn’t justify giving myself a 35% pay rise.

It's still got tp be cheaper in the long run than the consultants asking for £262 per hour to cover for junior doctors.

They are worth every penny!!!

Low salaries are discouraging students from becoming doctors and many are migrating to find jobs where they are paid appropriately.