Junior doctors strike

I heard a man on the Jeremy Vine Show this morning saying that someone he knows is a newly qualified junior doctor who hasn’t even started working yet but has gone on strike! He says he knew what the pay would be, knew what the working conditions were and still made the choice to become a doctor.

But he is how much in debt.

Primrose53

I heard a man on the Jeremy Vine Show this morning saying that someone he knows is a newly qualified junior doctor who hasn’t even started working yet but has gone on strike! He says he knew what the pay would be, knew what the working conditions were and still made the choice to become a doctor.

Newly qualified doctors start on the first Wednesday in August, so if he hasn't already started there's a reason. fwiw, he will have made the decision to be a doctor in 2016, which is 7 years ago and salaries have been eroded since then. Do the maths. UCAS application, taking the UCAT or BMAT test, last year of "A" levels and a minimum of 5 years at university or perhaps you don't know the hoops that doctors jump through to qualify??

Easy bee it’s not incompetence, it’s exhaustion. This s exactly why the junior Drs are striking. They work ridiculous hours to the point where they can no longer think straight for a relatively small salary when you look at the years and years of study and experience they need. Of course mistakes happen. How do I know? I “donated” my sons to the nhs at the age of 18 and throughout their training saw them fleetingly and when I did, they were exhausted. When my eldest son became a consultant there was a fairly fast change for the better; he was better able to plan leave and was rarely called into the hospital overnight. The candidates for medicine are amongst the highest achievers leaving school and very hard working. They have to be to get accepted. I can’t begin to explain the sacrifices these young men and women have made for their career and how hard they work. Please support them.

Australia have just published figures showing migration from UK for Doctors and Nurses are at an all time high ! I wonder why !

I emphasise with Doctors, Nurses and Teachers, there are shortages in all these roles and frankly this govt needs to take a good long look and make some new priorities - without education and good health we have nothing !! Yep, 100% with the Junior Doctors

My doctor had give part time 3 morning work only , because he told everyone he wanted a family life, but what he failed to say was the other days he was actually working in his private acupuncture clinic . Wouldn’t everyone like to have 32% pay increase ? I am saddened that it’s not a vocation anymore Just a job

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.

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.

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.

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 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?

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.

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

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.

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

Ment 100%

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.

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.

Well said! Pay is secondary.

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

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.

👏👏👏

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.

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 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….

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.