Junior Doctors strike

Doctors aren’t paid by football clubs are they?

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It is true that lots of people's salaries have fallen over the last few years, but, at least at the moment, people in the private sector are getting much higher pay increases than in the public sector.

Junior doctors are not just doctors straight out of training - they may have been working as a doctor for several years. They have to undergo lengthy and rigorous training and most have incurred large debts in the process.

A junior doctor interviewed yesterday said she had worked as a doctor for 6 years and earned £19 an hour. I think that is a paltry sum when you consider not just the length and depth of training but the massive responsibility and pressure that comes with the job. The most junior doctors earn just £14 an hour, and their pay has been diminished by 26% over the last few years.

Not pleasant for sick people, maybe at the end of their lives, or their visitors.

Footballers, film stars, pop singers, etc. are no match for some of the world's billionaires whose wealth exceeds that of small countries and whose money gives them great power.

Of course 'junior' doctors should have a pay increase. However, the fundamental issue underlying all public service poor pay is that the UK has a low growth economy which means less tax to pay for services. Getting more people into work helps boost production but the productivity of the workforce has not significantly increased from the 1980s. There was a leaked report in Mrs Thatcher's time as PM that questioned the policy consequences of a low growth economy and it was hushed up. Governments seem incapable of solving this problem despite promising to do so.

Tax doesn't pay for services, Grantanow. If anything, paying more for public services would greatly increase the tax revenue.

I do not understand why folks cannot grasp this simple exercise of logic.

lemsip

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.

Comments such as this are so weird.
One of the things I've observed about Gnet over the years is that fully grown elderly adults can behave exactly like schoolchildren. No-one ever really 'grows up'. They do grow nasty and judgemental, though..

MaizieD

Tax doesn't pay for services, Grantanow. If anything, paying more for public services would greatly increase the tax revenue.

I do not understand why folks cannot grasp this simple exercise of logic.

I wonder if doctors were all private, people would see them in the same way as lawyers and accountants, who don't "produce" anything tangible and can charge what the market will stand.

My mother 91, was rushed to hospital on Wednesday during this strike, the few remaining doctors were very kind and were helped by nurse practitioners doing double shifts. It was still scary. Yes I hope they get a pay rise maybe not as much as asked but no I don’t think striking is the way to do it. Putting patients at risk of unqualified staff whose intentions are good but they are not doctors.

MaizieD Is it nasty and judgmental to hark back to say 30 years ago when somehow my family had a very efficient if stern gp who was so helpful to my young family?

Even younger people are commenting on how very difficult it is to access medical treatments now.

By trying to mute criticism, are we not in danger of making a bad situation much worse?

widgeon3

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.

You and I could probably write a book about being a doctor's wife in those years. As said, it was exactly £1000 for 140 hrs a week in 1970- and you just could not live on that in SW London.

Became easier when doing GPtraining 3 year rotation, as we lived in West Midlands- we could not have afforded to live in London or Surrey, where OH grew up.

But yes, being a GP's wife in those days meant being up many times in the night, having to be home whenever OH was on call, 1 night in 3 or 4, and 1 week-end in 3 or 4 - and without any pay at all. It was just 'expected' and you had to do it. Most doctors in those days were married to other doctors or nurses, as they didn't have enough free time to meet anyone else (we met on the train, at Clapham Junction! I was lost...) so at least they had some expertise when they had to pick up the phone when OP out on a call (before reliable mobiles- and before deputising services- when being on call was part of contract). I had to sit up for hours wondering if I had done the right thing, should I have called an ambulance- whilst having a new baby and a toddler who were awaken by the phone, etc. Not a penny for it.

And for the book- those ridiculous and totally disrespectful calls 'worried about slight hair loss, at 4am' - 'got a headache and have no paracetamol, could doc bring some' at 5am, after several emergency calls. 3 am 'can doc come, I have decided to foolw his advice and stop drinking', and so on.

Sorry, just to add, the NHS got 2 for the price of one- GPs had to have someone to take calls when on call, nights and week-ends- which meant that the 'other one' had to do a job they were not trained for, very demanding and stressful + lack of sleep, and for free!