Junior doctors strike

Well done to your daughter foxie. She is a credit to you. Thank you for explaining the complexity of junior doctors.

I read a very interesting article in the Daily Mail yesterday by Theodore Dalrymple, which is well worth taking a few minutes to read for an alternative view to the majority of opinions on GN.

ronib

Casdon thanks for your clear response. Next question is how working conditions on the night shifts in hospitals could be improved ? More junior doctors? More senior doctors? Etc

The problem is that most nights, days and weekends in most hospitals there are fewer than the required number of doctors and nurses because there is a shortage of doctors and nurses generally. The other thing to appreciate is doctors and nurses have different skills according to the speciality that they are following and the level of training they have. As all doctors up to consultant level are effectively still in training you can't just replace a specialist training year 4 (ST4) doctor with one that is a ST1 and expect them to do the same job. My daughter is a ST4 anaesthetic doctor, she does regular nights in obstetrics, giving epidurals, in theatre with patients having emergency CS's or she might be covering an intensive care unit doing tracheotomies etc or is available for emergency operations that come via A&E. She can't just be replaced with another doctor with different skills or length of training and she is the product of 7 years training post graduation with another 5 years ahead of her before becoming a consultant. She is a junior doctor.

The entitlement thing is plain weird Maddy…..

I know Sue but I guess it is what it is.

The complaints about doctors on this thread make me ashamed. Some of the entitlement is visible here. The comments that doctors shouldn’t strike, are paid enough, should be made to work in the NHS for two years (they do already) a lack of understanding/ignorance about training and service and qualifications and working conditions etc. Too many people who don’t actually give a toss so long as the doctors are there when they want them to be. Total disinterest in the reasons these strikes have arisen. It’s all here on Gransnet.

Thank you to those who do understand and thankfully there are many of these too. Maizie, Wyllow, SueDonim, Foxie, Iam64, and others too many to name, just thank you for understanding the situation in all it’s complexity.

You have misinterpreted my post MaizieD

No, I thought your thinking was muddled. This reply seems to confirm it.

I posted that junior doctors need better working conditions, as in fact do all clinicians in the NHS.

I appreciate that but NHS staff are not responsible for their current working pay and conditions. In a free labour market they are perfectly entitled to take their skills and expertise to a country where they are better treated.

I am all for their salaries increasing, but not an immediate 35%, get round the table and negotiate a sliding scale.

You surely don't think that they seriously expect to get a 35% pay increase (though, in view of a decade of underpayment which has eroded the value of their pay by a quarter, plus the effect of current inflation, I think their claim is completely justified). 35% is their opening figure for negotiation. I'm sure that you, and most other posters understand how 'negotiation' works?

It is also their prerogative to work wherever they want. I just find it ironic that the union representatives constantly go on about we do not want a private healthcare system in the UK but many of their members are defecting to work in private healthcare systems elsewhere.

I don't find it ironic. I find it extremely sad that their members are being forced into abandoning the NHS because our government refuse to give them decent pay and conditions. 'Vocation' and claps don't put food on the table.

Which is a bit like saying that private systems are good enough for those countries but not the U.K.

I don't think it's saying that at all. Once again, you seem to be implying that 'vocation' and 'principles' trumps earning a decent living.

I am not for a USA type model, but would happily welcome a discussion on a mainland European model which can be a mixture of both if it would improve the current NHS model here.

There are certainly different ways that the NHS could be organised, but as far as the financing model is concerned there is no compelling economic argument for privatisation , or even semi privatisation, unless you believe the the nation's finances are the same as a households. The state finance model is as beneficial to the economy as the private finance model in that every £1 of state financing generates about £4 worth of economic activity. It's economists who have studied this field who are saying this, not me.

State financing is more equable than a privatised model in that it cuts out those dividends to shareholders in private healthcare companies so all the money the state invests goes directly to employees and the companies that supply the public sector. It also means that quality care is available to all citizens, regardless of their financial status. That was, after all, the whole point of setting up the NHS in the first place.

Musky17

Well said! Pay is secondary.

This every time. The trouble is, to the Tories everything is about money. They just can't compute that working conditions are frequently the sticking point. As with teachers. Pay is ok. Having to work a 70 hour week is not.

Rosalyn69

I can’t condone the strikes and certainly not a 35% pay rise. I’m also not sure it will solve the NHS problems. It just means doctors will get more money which is nice for them but….

It might keep them in this country Rosalyn69 there can be not "but's" about that surely?

Why can a country like ours not pay commensurate with other western countries? Then we'd keep most of who we train at great expense.

I can’t condone the strikes and certainly not a 35% pay rise. I’m also not sure it will solve the NHS problems. It just means doctors will get more money which is nice for them but….

MaizieD

^I do find it ironic that NHS staff praise the free at point of use premise of the NHS and then emigrate to work in a private system elsewhere.^

What is ironic about people wanting to be paid commensurate with their skills and value to society? Are you another one who thinks that 'vocation' justifies exploitation? I'm surprised at you, GG13.

You have misinterpreted my post MaizieD

I posted that junior doctors need better working conditions, as in fact do all clinicians in the NHS.

I am all for their salaries increasing, but not an immediate 35%, get round the table and negotiate a sliding scale.

It is also their prerogative to work wherever they want. I just find it ironic that the union representatives constantly go on about we do not want a private healthcare system in the UK but many of their members are defecting to work in private healthcare systems elsewhere.

Which is a bit like saying that private systems are good enough for those countries but not the U.K.

I am not for a USA type model, but would happily welcome a discussion on a mainland European model which can be a mixture of both if it would improve the current NHS model here.

I do find it ironic that NHS staff praise the free at point of use premise of the NHS and then emigrate to work in a private system elsewhere.

What is ironic about people wanting to be paid commensurate with their skills and value to society? Are you another one who thinks that 'vocation' justifies exploitation? I'm surprised at you, GG13.

vegansrock

Support the strikes I say. It seems Ok for third rate journalists to become MPs and immediately get £80k pa plus expenses, long holidays and big pensions plus second “consultancy ” jobs yet those who spend years in training running up huge student debts and who literally save lives are deemed worth £14k per hour. it’s truly disgusting. We can’t afford it is ridiculous - we can afford HS2, building tanks and weapons of war , coronations, paying cronies of ministers for failed projects, kings portraits, tax evaders, non doms, bailing out privatised rail companies, I could go on. What is more important? We can’t afford NOT to pay our doctors and nurses decent money- we know what happens if we don’t- crippling staff shortages means we are put in danger even when they aren’t on strike.

👏👏👏

Casdon thanks for your clear response. Next question is how working conditions on the night shifts in hospitals could be improved ? More junior doctors? More senior doctors? Etc

Well said! Pay is secondary.

They need better conditions and a salary increase, 35% is unrealistic in one hit negotiate a sliding scale should be the fair way.

I do find it ironic that NHS staff praise the free at point of use premise of the NHS and then emigrate to work in a private system elsewhere.

ronib

Sue Donim any idea how many nurses were working alongside your daughter and one other medic on the night shift covering 250 patients?

On average it is two qualified nurses per ward at night in surgical wards in general hospitals, so about 20 nurses would be on duty for 250 beds, plus healthcare support workers. Irrelevant though, as nurses care, and doctors treat. If they were very fortunate there might be a nurse practitioner as well, who could take a portion of the straightforward medical tasks on, within the realms of their directive. A more senior junior doctor would be on call, and in the event of an emergency there would also be a on call consultant they could contact via the senior on call. It’s a heavy and scary workload for young doctors on duty at night, they are unsung heroes.

Ment 100%

2024 This vile government will be gone.Drs and nurses lost their lives during the pandemic. Claps don't pay the bills
Support q00%

Support the strikes I say. It seems Ok for third rate journalists to become MPs and immediately get £80k pa plus expenses, long holidays and big pensions plus second “consultancy ” jobs yet those who spend years in training running up huge student debts and who literally save lives are deemed worth £14k per hour. it’s truly disgusting. We can’t afford it is ridiculous - we can afford HS2, building tanks and weapons of war , coronations, paying cronies of ministers for failed projects, kings portraits, tax evaders, non doms, bailing out privatised rail companies, I could go on. What is more important? We can’t afford NOT to pay our doctors and nurses decent money- we know what happens if we don’t- crippling staff shortages means we are put in danger even when they aren’t on strike.

Sue Donim any idea how many nurses were working alongside your daughter and one other medic on the night shift covering 250 patients?

Lizbethann said I think that as it costs so much to train doctors that they should have to work for at least 2 years in the NHS. If they choose not to for any reason then they should pay back a certain amount of the tax payers money that has been spent on their training

We don’t have forced labour in the UK.

It’s been explained on this board many times before that all doctors, (unless they are overseas students who pay stonking big fees) can only work for the NHS for two years post-graduation. It’s called Foundation Training and it is what all NQ medics must complete if they are to go any further in their careers.

Of course, as Maddy said earlier, medical students are working for the final two years before they graduate anyway, so by the time they’ve finished their Foundation Years, they’ve already been working for four years.

My newly qualified medic dd graduated exactly three years ago today during Covid and was thrown immediately into the furnace of a pandemic. Her first FY job was night shifts with one other NQ medic where they were in charge of 250 surgical patients for 12.5hrs a night. The hospital also had 800 patients with covid.

That’s a hell of a responsibility for a couple of 24 year olds - but seemingly it’s only worth £14ph.

I am saddened that it’s not a vocation anymore Just a job

So if you have a 'vocation' it's absolutely OK to be expected to work insane hours in crumbling and short staffed hospitals, after years of training leaving you with a big debt, for a wage that has lost 26% of its value in the last decade, ruthiek?

Would you do it?

MaggsMcG

I do sympathise with their situation and it's not fair the hours they are expected to work with not enough qualified doctors. However to ask for 35% in this day and age is a bit much. Also the NHS should step up the amount of tests and testers that foreign doctors need to take when applying to work in UK.

Isn't is "a bit much" to reduce salaries, over the years of this Tory government, by 26% when we are haemorrhaging doctors.

Don't people realise that all of us and our children, and grandchildren will pay so much more, or go without, if we privatise the NHS. Why can't people see that?

I think that as it costs so much to train doctors that they should have to work for at least 2 years in the NHS. If they choose not to for any reason then they should pay back a certain amount of the tax payers money that has been spent on their training.

I don't know about in Australia but my friend who has just returned from visiting her midwife daughter in New Zealand tells me that doctors don't work as hard over there and are paid more simply because there is no NHS and to even get a GP appointment a patient has to pay £25 and everyone has to have medical insurance. Maybe if we did that over here, the doctors could have there 35%? Personally speaking, I would rather not.

Franbern

I think it is totally disgusting that this government has permitted (even encouraged through their actions), this strike to have to go ahead. They do not care = they all have private medicine), they do not care for the thousands of people who will have operations and procedures cancelled, leaving them further time in pain, or care for those who are going to die due to this, or care for those doctors who have spent many years studying and more years really learning their craft, only to find themselves and their families so much financially worse off. They have been left with no choice but this industrial action. Disgusting that government have said they will not sit down to even discuss this.

Think the whole cabinet should be charged with Corporate Manslaughter.

My only bright spot in all of this is to hope that those Doctors families (many of whom normally have been tory voters) remember this betrayal in the future_

No it’s absolutely disgusting that Doctors are on strike. How can they justify a insane pay rise of 35%. A lot of them leave to go to another country or go into private practice after they have qualified. They should be ashamed of themselves for striking. So should the nurses and teachers.
Why do we assume that all NHS staff are caring angels. I have personally known of two cases where a patient has been misdiagnosed and subjected to uncaring negligent treatment. Both times life threatening.

Some of the anti doctor comments here make me feel nauseous.
It isn’t a free pension “that we pay for’, it’s a pension scheme the doctors pay in to.