Junior Doctors strike

B9exchange

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.

Me too. I was shocked to realise that was all they got. a young doctor on World at One said she couldn't afford to live properly on it especially with the hours she was working. Just totally disgraceful. No wonder they are going off to other countries. I cannot understand why anyone would object to £19 an hour for what they do.

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?

So why are bankers' pay increases justified by claiming they pay more tax?

Some confused thinking here.

Germanshepherdsmum

The government doesn’t pay the bankers growstuff.

How does that make any difference? It should be the government doesn't pay "directly" - it does control their pay.

If you had any understanding of macro-economics, you'd know how it works. As you don't, there's no basis for discussion.

Norah

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?

Income tax will not need to go up because taxation doesn't fund spending.

The government 'creates' the money it spends into the economy and taxes back what it has spent in order to avoid inflation. Before the money has been taxed back it has circulated in the economy and fuelled useful economic activity.

The more money the state spends/invests in the economy, the more it should get back in tax. This is not the same as putting up taxes.

growstuff

Germanshepherdsmum

The government doesn’t pay the bankers growstuff.

How does that make any difference? It should be the government doesn't pay "directly" - it does control their pay.

If you had any understanding of macro-economics, you'd know how it works. As you don't, there's no basis for discussion.

Bankers use government created money, just like everyone else does. They may not pay them directly, but the original source of their money is the state. Their only exceptional source would be foreign earnings.

You know as well as I do that governments can’t simply print money willy nilly Maizie. I am reminded of Germany when one had to take a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread. I fear your knowledge of the banking industry is not as great as you think. I learn a great deal about it from my son who is a capital markets lawyer. And many of his clients are foreign banks.

Germanshepherdsmum

You know as well as I do that governments can’t simply print money willy nilly Maizie. I am reminded of Germany when one had to take a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread. I fear your knowledge of the banking industry is not as great as you think. I learn a great deal about it from my son who is a capital markets lawyer. And many of his clients are foreign banks.

Ho ho ho! (and it's not even Christmas!)

Germany was having to pay crippling reparations in foreign currency - big difference!

1923 growstuff. The German government was printing vast amounts of money. Hyperinflation.

Whilst I totally get that taxation does not fund Government spending

Successive Governments/MPs of all persuasions continue to trot out that they cannot afford things, which commentators/interviewers go along with.

MaizieD any ideas why this happens? I cannot believe that just a handful of GN members and a couple of low profile economists are the only people in the know

Bankers may not be paid by taxpayers/Govt but it was taxpayers/Govt who bailed the banks out when greed overtook common sense and the banking system almost collapsed! I'm not happy with doctors going on strike and lots of doctors aren't happy about it either. Although membership of the BMA has increased significantly of late, less than 70% of Junior doctors are members. However, how do doctors (nurses, ambulance workers etc) ensure they are paid properly? Yes of course they can "vote with their feet", plenty are doing that already but is it really cost effective to have well trained people leaving the NHS? Is it cost effective to use Agency staff to cover vacancies? People who can afford it can use private medical care but that's actually rather limited and although you will see a consultant, there won't be one in the hospital just in case you have a medical emergency, you'll get taken to the local NHS hospital! There's no argument that doctors pay has not kept up with inflation and they are paid less than they should be so it needs to be sorted. Comparing them with people in the private sector, is IMHO somewhat pointless as the NHS is basically the only employer doctors can work for if they want to remain in a clinical setting, this is not true of people in the private sector.

Perhaps rather than comparing doctors with bankers we should compare them with vets. Similar training, working all hours but employed in the private sector. Average first year salary £28,000.

FY1 on 2016 contract, salary 29,384
Year 2 34,012.
Just to put context..Figures from BMA.
Not saying they shouldn't have wage increase, of course they should , but not what they are demanding. No one goes into medicine with their eyes shut, or Nursing for that matter.

GSM
Can I understand this properly? Are you actually arguing that doctors do not deserve more pay? Their pay has been falling in value since 2008. I find it difficult to understand why anyone would not think highly trained doctors deserve to be paid commensurately to their skills. You say your son is a lawyer. My son is a lawyer too and most lawyers earn huge amounts, far more than any doctor. The exception are criminal barristers and the government have held their pay down too.

GrannyGravy13

Whilst I totally get that taxation does not fund Government spending

Successive Governments/MPs of all persuasions continue to trot out that they cannot afford things, which commentators/interviewers go along with.

MaizieD any ideas why this happens? I cannot believe that just a handful of GN members and a couple of low profile economists are the only people ^in the know^

It's not just a handful of GN members and a couple of low profile economists, it's much more widespread than that. In fact, just about any macroeconomist* will tell you that a state with a sovereign currency can creates its own money, they just don't agree on to what extent and to for what reason it can be created.

There are whole books and masses of academic documents written about the topic.

Successive Governments/MPs of all persuasions continue to trot out that they cannot afford things, which commentators/interviewers go along with.

Well, think about it. If politicians admitted that the government could fund anything it wanted to, so long as there were resources (labour or materials) available to purchase, how could they explain away completely unnecessary but ideologically driven, cuts in spending?

The household budget myth is massively politically convenient.

(*macroeconomists look at a national budget and activity as a whole, whereas microeconomists look at economic activity individual sectors. You also get some political economists who look at the way that economic activity interacts with society as a whole. Adam Smith and the early 18th/ 19th C economists tended to be political economists)

maddyone F1 and F2 scales do not indicate highly trained medics. Think of it more as an apprenticeship and the many years of hard graft ahead.

The pay scales do not show all the allowances paid for extra shifts, locum work etc.

Germanshepherdsmum

Perhaps rather than comparing doctors with bankers we should compare them with vets. Similar training, working all hours but employed in the private sector. Average first year salary £28,000.

Well I know many vets- and all of them earn a lot more than GPs, and very quickly after their first year.

As a GP friend used to say, vets are so clever because they have to guess what is wrong even if the 'patient' can't tell them. However, antibiotics, anti-inflamatories, steroids- and when they stop working, pts. You can't do that with people!

Bankers have been bailed out by the public purse, again and again, and with vast sums of money.

Vets train as dentists too!

I saw an advert on the back of a bus offering £13 an hour vacancies for bus drivers. Junior doctors deserve so much more.

ronib
I think six years training is pretty highly trained. Those six years are spent at university but three of those are on Clinical Practice, in other words, a bit like an apprenticeship. Student doctors are not paid for these three years of working on the wards and in clinics alongside experienced doctors because they are learning. Of course doctors continue to learn throughout their professional lives, they never know everything because practice and treatments change and improve all the time.

F1 and F2 are compulsory years spent in a hospital working on a variety of rotations and therefore junior doctors widen their experience and expertise in a range of areas. After that they can start to specialise although not all do. This period of time is not an apprenticeship because that has already been done during their time in university and in clinical practice before they qualified.

Frankly I find it difficult to believe that you are comparing a six years trained doctor who may be the only doctor on duty if you’re admitted to hospital as an emergency during the night to an apprentice what? A hairdresser? A car mechanic? Both necessary jobs but I’m sorry, there is no comparison!

Germanshepherdsmum

You know as well as I do that governments can’t simply print money willy nilly Maizie. I am reminded of Germany when one had to take a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread. I fear your knowledge of the banking industry is not as great as you think. I learn a great deal about it from my son who is a capital markets lawyer. And many of his clients are foreign banks.

GSM, you might have been a brilliant solicitor, but trotting out the Weimar republic's hyperinflation as a 'proof' that money creation is a Bad Thing just shows that you don't have any in depth understanding of the dynamics of money creation.

It's not the money creation per se that causes hyperinflation, all countries with sovereign currencies 'create' money all the time. If they didn't, their economies would grind to a halt. The hyperinflation is caused by the specific circumstances under which the money was created.

Try googling for articles on the causes of hyperinflation, or try this: clintballinger.com/2021/01/12/the-myth-of-hyperinflation/

Then look at the UK's current socio/political circumstances and see if they indicate any risk of hyperinflation.

In fact, your bankers 'create' money all the time when they make loans. They don't fund loans from deposits, they are completely 'new' money.

Don't take my word for it, take the Bank of England's word

Commercial banks create money, in the form of bank deposits, by making new loans. When a bank makes a loan, for example to someone taking out a mortgage to buy a house, it does not typically do so by giving them thousands of pounds worth of banknotes. Instead, it credits their bank account with a bank deposit of the size of the mortgage. At that moment, new money is created.

www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/quarterly-bulletin-2014-q1.pdf (P 14 onwards "Money creation in the modern economy"

The bank creates new money by way of loans. When the loan is repaid, the money is destroyed. The bank's profit comes from the interest charged on the loan. Government issued money works in the same way. The government issues new money to fund its activities, taxation returns the money to the government, thus destroying it.

NB banks create the 'new' money under licence from the Bank of England. Not every one can 'create' money, only the BoE and those licenced by it can do that.

ronib

maddyone F1 and F2 scales do not indicate highly trained medics. Think of it more as an apprenticeship and the many years of hard graft ahead.

The pay scales do not show all the allowances paid for extra shifts, locum work etc.

Do you have any doctors in your family, ronib?

If you don't then I think that telling people who do that junior house posts are an 'apprenticeship' is a bit cheeky.

Fleurpepper

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.

Whilst I agree with most of what you say you should say"SOME Consultants ", make it clear they do not want to be called during the night. I lived among them and know a lot who went in when there were problems and stayed until it was sorted.

MaizieD yes I do have a relative who trained as a doctor . Gave up.

More interestingly two good friends also medics who told me in no uncertain terms that when they were training, 80 hours a week was the norm. This was because of the sheer complexity and range of human illnesses that as full an exposure as possible was given to doctors still in training. So maybe only doing 48 hours a week seemed a retrograde step to my friends who both made consultants eventually.

Yammy

Fleurpepper

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.

Whilst I agree with most of what you say you should say"SOME Consultants ", make it clear they do not want to be called during the night. I lived among them and know a lot who went in when there were problems and stayed until it was sorted.

Yes, a generational thing too. This is how it was in the 70s and 80s, and hopefully changed somewhat. Same as the hours, when 140 hours + was normal for Junior doctors in call- living at the hospital when on call. If you were in Casualty, Cardiac Unit or Obs and ginea- you were lucky if you got any sleep at all, often a day, a night and another day, non stop, 1 night off and again. Thank goodness this is no longer allowed.

Thank you for your kind but very patronising lecture Maizie. You assume me to be ignorant of the workings of the banking industry but haven’t told me anything I didn’t already know. Do you really think I believe that a lender transfers a shedload of notes to a borrower? And did I suggest that hyperinflation is likely to occur in the UK? No. Ye gods.