Into the abyss - NHS Consultants have voted for strike action

As the wife of a retired medic whose speciality had no private practice [ not all have, if Insurance will not cover their field for private work as it is long term and costs too much],
I hear both sides of the story.
Are the government pushing us all towards private Insurance pre-1945. All I can say is come back an Atlee and Aneurin Bevan type and save the NHS which we all need.
I'm keeping quiet on here. I am the red in the bed at home.

Bella23 surely it’s the consultants and junior doctors who are pushing us towards private insurance pre 1945? This group is making its case for salaries around £200k a year and know very well that the Nhs won’t stretch that far.
Not only that the consultants themselves have consistently voted against expanding medical training places.

Bella, every time that I am in the centre of Cardiff I touch the statue of Nye Bevan and send a thank you up for all the lives touched by the NHS from safe births to managed deaths and every stage in between. This service needs staffing.People with skills we need must be paid. We apply this logic to bankers, I understand.

Indeed ronib.
Chocolatelovinggean, we the taxpayers don’t pay bankers.

GrannyGravy13

This group of strikers I have absolutely no sympathy with, in fact I have nothing but contempt.

Their NHS salaries are over £100,000 add on their Private work and…

Is that pro rata because many do not work full-time for the NHS?

It's a measure of the level of desperation that runs all through the NHS at the tories' ongoing demolition of the service that consultants have taken the unprecedented decision to strike.

I entirely support them and hope that this catastrophe will bring the government to its senses.

This is a government which is entirely comfortable with the idea of the UK sliding into a depression which could have devastating consequences for millions of UK citizens. Why should its services, which it has little regard for, be propping it up by soldiering on?

GSM - so is the importance/ value of a person's related exclusively to their paymaster?

person's role ! sorry...

MaizieD well stay out of hospital end of July!

You can’t compare people paid by the taxpayer with those in the private sector clg.

I can't help thinking that this vote is representative of the poor morale of doctors working in the NHS. fwiw consultants on ft contracts working for the NHS cannot exceed private earnings in excess of 10% of their NHS salary, so a consultant on £100K p.a. would earn £110K max. This salary pales into insignificance when compared with many professions, especially when also compared with the years of training required. There are also many specialisms that have few opportunities for private work, paediatrics, obstetrics, geriatrics, spring to mind. Surely doctors have as much right to be properly paid as anyone else? They should also have good working conditions and feel valued so they stay working in the NHS. We are increasingly becoming a country with a two tier health service, poorer people get poor NHS treatment and richer people can go private and get really good treatment. It's beginning to feel like the US!

Their salaries may pale into insignificance when compared with other professions foxie, but it was ever thus and they would have known that when choosing medicine as a career rather than, say, law or banking.

Germanshepherdsmum

Their salaries may pale into insignificance when compared with other professions foxie, but it was ever thus and they would have known that when choosing medicine as a career rather than, say, law or banking.

I can hazard a very good guess as to what the majority of the population would say is the most valuable of those roles to society. Skewed priorities.

I know the NHS is sacred and I feel sorry for the junior doctors but I'm less sympathetic to consultants. If they would agree to increase the training places and thus the stranglehold on expansion there could be many more doctors.

Casdon Since a lot of newly qualified medics are migrating to Australia and NZ, and we’re stealing medics from third world countries, the notion of skewed priorities is ironic.

ronib

Casdon Since a lot of newly qualified medics are migrating to Australia and NZ, and we’re stealing medics from third world countries, the notion of skewed priorities is ironic.

I don’t follow your logic ronib. I know, let’s pay all doctors peanuts, encourage them to emigrate, and follow the Logan’s Run model shall we?

Consideration needs to be given to the entire employment contract, not just the salary. I'm not sure if it's still the case, but the NHS employer's pension contribution used to be 14%, and doctors' holiday entitlement was around 7 weeks' per annum, both of which are significantly more than the norm. Maternity pay was also very generous, as I recall. I'm happy to pay doctors a fair and reasonable rate of pay, providing they are happy to accept that their other terms of employment also need to be in line with what is fair and reasonable - they are well above the "norm" at present.

Casdon lots of people are paid peanuts in this country not just doctors in training. If a student wants a highly paid profession maybe the time to work it out is before the start of university and not at the end. No one is forcing people to choose medicine.

Agreed Opal and ronib.

The Tories spend some 39% less on the NHS than the Germans spend on their health service and we are consequentially short of doctors who are leaving for Australia and elsewhere for a less-stressful and better paid life.. Bear in mind that government Ministers can earn £84,000 as MPs plus up to about £101,000 (depending on the post) as well as being eligible for significant expenses and allowances. Few of them have worked and studied as hard as hospital consultants for whom it takes about 15 years to achieve the grade and they incur considerable education and training costs and student debt.

Grantanow do you know how much Germans pay out monthly for healthcare? It would be useful to compare. It’s a more complicated system than here.

The cost of public health insurance in Germany is typically based on a percentage of an individual’s income and, as of 2023, is set at a rate between 14.6% to 15.6%— depending on your salary. This percentage is shared between you and your employer, but if you are self-employed, you cover the entire cost alone.

As a pensioner, you pay the same health insurance contribution rate of 16.1%, just like other insured parties. This contribution rate is a combination of the general contribution rate of 14.6% and the additional contribution of 1.5%. For nursing care insurance, as well, you pay the same contribution as any other insured party. In 2023, the contribution rate for nursing care is 3.4%.
The contributions for health and nursing care insurance are calculated on the basis of your individual income. The following sources of income are taken into account in this case:

Statutory pensions under the German pension insurance scheme and agricultural pensions
Foreign pensions
Benefit payments from your former employer
Earnings from lump-sum benefits and lump-sum settlements
Income from self-employed work (earned income)

ronib

Casdon lots of people are paid peanuts in this country not just doctors in training. If a student wants a highly paid profession maybe the time to work it out is before the start of university and not at the end. No one is forcing people to choose medicine.

As I said ronib, it will be like Logan’s Run. Why not close the medical schools altogether, let all the highly intelligent previously would be doctors take the jobs from the financial and legal professionals, and send everybody off to oblivion at the age of 30. Who needs healthcare after all.

Germanshepherdsmum

Their salaries may pale into insignificance when compared with other professions foxie, but it was ever thus and they would have known that when choosing medicine as a career rather than, say, law or banking.

Indeed they do but all the doctors are asking is to be put back on a level that they expected to be on when they started training, they are not asking for an increase per se just parity.

Casdon I wouldn't have made it beyond five years of age.

And I doubt if there would be enough people for GN.