Junior Doctors strike

The role of a junior doctor should not be taken lightly. Often they are more on the ball for general medicine than more experienced drs who tend to specialise in one particular area. Even GPs can't know all there is to know on every known condition. The internet is a tool of the trade, a way of finding as much information as possible and often the best way of finding opinions of colleagues. Gone are the days where dr simply got together over dinner to discuss complex cases. Their case loads are enormous. Patients are ready to challenge every thing and taylor things to what they want instead of following suggestions. It just saddens me that nurses, doctors, those in education and those in other public service areas like the railway are so disgruntled with work and conditions that striking for more pay is now a "Thing".

I was talking to my granddaughter who is in 3rd year on her medical degree and she was saying the “ junior doctors “ ones that have finished 5 yrs and go to hospitals to do their 2 yr traineeship are on less than folk at Starbucks, which seems astonishing!!

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!

I completely support our junior doctors, nurses and teachers ….. as always Media put slants on their stories, I have both family and friends in all three of these professions and their salaries and working conditions are often appalling

growstuff

Wyllow The cynic in me wondered if yesterday's pension change, which will benefit older, senior doctors, was an attempt to drive a wedge between consultants and "junior" doctors.

I rather think it was a way to assist those with big pensions (the rich) whilst spinning the whole thing as being aimed at doctors. It would have been possible to do a deal for doctors without including other over paid people.

ronib what the midwife told you about consultant hours of work is incorrect. They are contracted to the NHS for 4 hour sessions (ie a morning or afternoon), and can work any number of sessions per week up to full time. On call is a separate payment arrangement. In my (long) experience of working in the NHS the majority of consultants work no less than 8 sessions per week for the NHS, and many work full time. If a consultant worked 25 hours it would not equate to sessions, the nearest being 24 hours, ie 6 sessions. I think sessions are now called programmed activity, ie a fixed timetable which all consultants work to.

A retired midwife told me one of the problems with the NHS is that consultants are only allowed to work 25 hours a week so of course, extra hours are worked in the private sector.

As previously discussed in another thread, consultants voted against the expansion of medical places as it was felt that medical students could not be trained adequately if numbers expanded.

I am left with the impression of a large bureaucracy which includes an ample budget to pay for compensation claims when mistakes inevitably occur. I am sure that individual practitioners are highly motivated and probably exhausted but what next for this much valued service?

A lovely doctor to whom I owe a lot retired in his 50s due to the pension situation so I am very pleased to see it tackled at last, after years of talk. We need the older, experienced doctors as well as the younger ones.

And Hunt tried to spin it as helping the NHS.

Wyllow The cynic in me wondered if yesterday's pension change, which will benefit older, senior doctors, was an attempt to drive a wedge between consultants and "junior" doctors.

correct, help in times of greatest need not heap! sorry feel rather passionately about it!

I was in a L party local Zoom yesterday discussing what future plans we should put forward in resourcing MH provision into the future. Two doctors were there as well as nurses.
The GP and nurses felt passionately about what they so in this still relatively underfunded sector but the main theme coming out was that in the struggles they have to help people they are being *hit upon all he way, undervalued and yes underpaid in the junior side.

I totally back them. The mot senior doctors totally back them. Twas not always so. the BMA used to be a pillar of establishment values back in the day.

and yesterday in the budget, not a mention of public sector workers or trying to help the NHS.

time to value properly in every sense those who heaps in our times of greatest need, who daily have to make life and death decisions or quality of life decisions.

How many professions, like my doctor sister, have to make decisions about who gets kidney treatment and who dies? Who has to listen to pleas from those who are suicidal for help, and not able to offer enough?

It’s the only comparison I can offer from personal experience DaisyAnne. Both work very long hours. One is paid for every one of those hours, the other has a fixed salary no matter how many hours are worked. Both go on to earn far more as they gain experience.

Chardy, you are absolutely right. I love your doughnut analogy.

Germanshepherdsmum

I think we also have to recognise that their salary is based on a 40 hour week, but they work many more hours for which they are paid. When you equate their total remuneration with say that of a newly qualified solicitor who has to work the same horrendous hours 6 hours sleep is a luxury) but on a fixed salary, the financial outcome is not dissimilar. I’m by no means saying that either profession should have to work the hours they do, but it’s the reality of both jobs. I remember my son, as a newly qualified solicitor, saying he’d get a better hourly rate working at MacDonalds, and he was right. Each of course earns far more as they progress. And no, I’m not saying junior doctors shouldn’t have a pay rise.

I just don't feel we need a solicitor as much as we do a doctor. Our health, well-being and even life may depend on a doctor. A solicitor really doesn't come that high on my list. Well-trained or not, sleeping or not, I do not give a solicitor the value I put on a doctor. I would go as far as to say it seems a very odd comparison.

More wow!

OH was Houseman and then SHO in London hospitals- can you imagine how it must be for junior doctors to find suitable accommodation? It was bad enough in London in the 70s! In fact, our rent for our small damp and dingy flat, with a 50p gas fire, with bills, in the attic of an old house, cost more than salary. We had to give it up to live in his room at the hospital, in a pre-fab, 1 x 2'6 bed, a small desk, 1 chair and a sink- and shower and WC shared for 6 rooms at end of corridor. When the bleep went, all the Junior docs got up as it was heard in every room. We then moved to the West Midlands, and after living in dingy horrible hospital accommodation in the attic of the Victorian part of the hospital, could afford a small house - but nothing to put in it.

Sorry, beginning to sound like the Yorkshire men and Monty Python- but so true.

Chardy

Fleurpepper

maddyone

Germanshepherdsmum

A junior doctor is paid just over £14 an hour for their first year of workplace training. So not a fully qualified doctor.

No!
A fist year doctor is a fully qualified doctor. After the five or six years at university a doctor graduates as a doctor. They then work F1 and F2 and are paid a salary because they are fully qualified doctors. They have not specialised at that point but they are fully qualified. During university they work in the hospitals too, it’s called clinical experience and they are still learning. My daughter spent three full years of her time at university engaged in clinical work in the hospitals, in a variety of hospitals all around London as she trained at UCL. Make no mistake about it, after six years at university, during which time she collected two degrees, one a BSc and the other a medical degree, in other words, a doctorate, she was fully qualified. Further work, study, and training is then acquired over years in order to become a Consultant.

Well done her. OH qualified at UCH in 1969. His first year as a Junior doctor, when I met him, he worked 140 hrs a week for exactly £1000. A different world altogether then!

20 hour days, every day for a week! Wow! I assume that included overnight on-calls.
I know a new teacher was earning £1308pa in 1974, so £1000 for a doctor 5yrs before sounds comparable.

Yes, that was the norm then. Yes, some on-call at night and week-ends- but as said above, that meant nothing if you worked in A&E, Cardiac Ward, or Obs and gynea- women had babies, needed stitching and C sections night and day.

Surely the UK economy is based on supply and demand. If there aren't enough doughnuts to satisfy the public's need, then the price goes up, until the number of doughnuts equals the number of people prepared to pay that price.
But this is heresy for the public sector. There aren't enough doctors, so other doctors work harder to cover the gaps, become burnt-out and leave. Consequently even fewer doctors.
We don't have enough doctors

Fleurpepper

maddyone

Germanshepherdsmum

A junior doctor is paid just over £14 an hour for their first year of workplace training. So not a fully qualified doctor.

No!
A fist year doctor is a fully qualified doctor. After the five or six years at university a doctor graduates as a doctor. They then work F1 and F2 and are paid a salary because they are fully qualified doctors. They have not specialised at that point but they are fully qualified. During university they work in the hospitals too, it’s called clinical experience and they are still learning. My daughter spent three full years of her time at university engaged in clinical work in the hospitals, in a variety of hospitals all around London as she trained at UCL. Make no mistake about it, after six years at university, during which time she collected two degrees, one a BSc and the other a medical degree, in other words, a doctorate, she was fully qualified. Further work, study, and training is then acquired over years in order to become a Consultant.

Well done her. OH qualified at UCH in 1969. His first year as a Junior doctor, when I met him, he worked 140 hrs a week for exactly £1000. A different world altogether then!

20 hour days, every day for a week! Wow! I assume that included overnight on-calls.
I know a new teacher was earning £1308pa in 1974, so £1000 for a doctor 5yrs before sounds comparable.

MaizieD

^One doctor on tv said he could not afford to live near his hospital in Oxford. Lots of young professionals find themselves in this situation too.^

Instead of insinuating that doctors shouldn't be trying to be better off than other young professionals, how about comparing them with the highly paid financial sector employees of a similar age?

I don't understand why everyone has to be reduced to the lowest common denominator...

Absolutely.

SHO for Senior House Officier- before that it was 'House Officer'

foxie48

Junior Grades
1. SHO – is the old term for a junior doctor in training now replaced by ST1 – ST2 – ST3. Also known in some hospitals as Clinical Fellow.
Training Grades
FY1 and FY2 – the first 2 years of clinical experience after qualification
ST1 – ST3 are the first 3 years of Basic Specialty Training (Old SHO)
ST4 – ST8 are the remaining 5 years of Higher Specialist Training. (Old Specialist Registrar)

Thanks for this.

I’m not saying junior doctors shouldn’t have a pay rise.

Nobody has said that, have they?

I think we also have to recognise that their salary is based on a 40 hour week, but they work many more hours for which they are paid. When you equate their total remuneration with say that of a newly qualified solicitor who has to work the same horrendous hours 6 hours sleep is a luxury) but on a fixed salary, the financial outcome is not dissimilar. I’m by no means saying that either profession should have to work the hours they do, but it’s the reality of both jobs. I remember my son, as a newly qualified solicitor, saying he’d get a better hourly rate working at MacDonalds, and he was right. Each of course earns far more as they progress. And no, I’m not saying junior doctors shouldn’t have a pay rise.