The NHS this winter. “Let’s be careful out there”. Needs must it seems.

It isn’t and shouldn’t be possible to dictate that doctors can’t do private work

There aren’t the amount of private hospitals around, it’s not as if they can all just give up NHS hospitals and many won’t want to.At the very least patients in NHS hospitals should all be just that, and not private patients being treated there by NHS doctors doing their private work there.
The nurses settled their dispute and I think doctors and consultants should as well.

If they don’t do both types of work, there’ll be even less doctors in the NHS. Is that what you want to achieve?

My priorities are just fine thanks.Did you know that striking doctors asked their Union if they could do their private work during the strike days? The Union said yes! It is all about the money and they are asking for a ridiculous rise.They’ll keep it going until a change of government hoping that Labour will give them more.It may do but nothing like what they’re asking for.
I believe that after giving a certain number of years to only working for the NHS, doctors and consultants then decide if they’ll work only for the NHS or just do private work, but not
both.
Private hospital work brings more money but there are other reasons to work only for the NHS such as better equipment and research and maybe a little something called a vocation.

Oreo

silverlining48

Well where would we be if we were all something’ in the city.’
Who would do the stuff which allows others to make a comfortable living, the healing, the caring the cleaning the teaching, the policing and everything else which oils the wheels of society. It is not and should not be all about profit.

My pension after a lifetime of public service is a little under £6000 gross pa.

If it’s not about profit ( their own) then what are the doctors and consultants striking for? I think we know, it’s all about the money honey.Maybe if they did a little less private work and put more into helping NHS patients the waiting lists for the NHS would be a bit shorter.

I think you have your priorities the wrong way round, Oreo

Why on earth should doctors and consultants, who had their pay frozen for a decade, feel obliged to work their socks off for minimal reward when it is the last 13 years of tory government which have, by underfunding the NHS for no good reason, created the mess that it is in now?

The enormous waiting lists are not down to the NHS staff, they are down to the government's treatment of the NHS.

The doctor's pay claim is realistic. It represents the amount needed to bring their pay back to the level it was before the tories froze public sector pay in the name of 'austerity'.

I still maintain that if doctors had put in a more realistic pay claim, the government would be more inclined to negotiate.
If they gave in to this ridiculous 35% demand, what would happen? Other unions would immediately put in similar ludicrous claims, wouldn’t they?

Yes of course we were all grateful to medics during the pandemic and we all made sacrifices to ‘save the NHS’ but now it’s in everyone’s interest for the long waiting list for treatment to be tackled.

Consultants and junior doctors are apparently planning to strike on the same days to cause maximum disruption.
I think it’s disgraceful.

Whitewavemark2

If we all had to have private insurance, we would be paying the consultants much more, so I’m not sure why as taxpayers we expect to get their services on the cheap?

Likewise all clinicians.

This and also maddyone posts the reality of doctors pay scales

On public sector pensions, I have one thank goodness. I paid in over 34 years. I could have earned much more in the private sector. I didn’t want to contribute to organisations making a lot of money out of people’s misery. People not profit

We need to pay doctors more to encourage recruitment and discourage their emigration to a better job overseas. The Tories are quite willing to sacrifice patients' lives to keep pay down - they are killing people.

Those who moan about public sector pensions should remember that they were negotiated by public sector unions. If you are unhappy about your future private sector pension join a union and press it to negotiate for better pensions, not merely pay. Those who didn't obviously regret it.

The Tories attacked civil servants' pensions when they came to power by switching indexation from RPI to CPI which gives a lower pension increment but they still hypocritically index student loan repayments at RPI. The Labour Party ratted on its own staff in a similar move and mostly failed to attend the debate on the matter which was gained by over 100,000 signatures: disgraceful.

There is often a winter crisis in the NHS, nothing to do with striking doctors or covid, more to do with underfunding and cutting services. If you don’t mind doctors moving abroad at an unprecedented rate and even more crises then support this zombie government.

If we all had to have private insurance, we would be paying the consultants much more, so I’m not sure why as taxpayers we expect to get their services on the cheap?

Likewise all clinicians.

£200 million is nothing when there has been a cut in real terms of £4billion
www.nhsconfed.org/news/nhs-leaders-facing-real-terms-cut-funding-and-impossible-choices-over-which-areas-patient-care

NHS leaders are used to having less money than their local services need, but what we are seeing now is a yawning gap between the funding the NHS needs and what it has at its disposal. The real terms cut this year is at least £4 billion and we think it represents the first real-terms cut in funding since 1997.
“This leaves the NHS in a perilous position: either local leaders will have to cut back patient care or accept that waiting times will continue to lengthen
^

Let’s not forget who was on the front line during Covid either. I expect many of you were all out clapping for the medics then. Well they don’t want clapping, and they didn’t want it then either. Many doctors and nurses died because they were doing their jobs during Covid! Meanwhile half the country sat on their backsides and claimed furlough. Furlough went on for more than eighteen months and nearly crippled the country.
How dare you complain and call medics greedy?

JenniferEccles

I’m appalled at the behaviour of these selfish, already well paid doctors and consultants.
What about their commitment to their patients on the ever- lengthening waiting lists ?
What is it they are demanding - 35% isn’t it? It’s obviously all about money, despite what they say.

I hope the government holds its nerve.

I’m shocked by this post.
Doctors of all grades have seen their pay degraded over the last fourteen years and it’s been degraded by 35%. That’s why they’re asking for 35%.
We are haemorrhaging doctors to other countries every year but we still apparently think they’re greedy, selfish people.
They’re not, but they are at long last making a stand.
This government, and Labour are no better, dislike paying public servants, except for themselves. They should pay our doctors what they’re worth, and it’s a lot more than what’s been offered.
As for the £200 million, it’s a drop in the ocean. We’re giving £1.6 billion to other countries to help them work towards net zero. I was told on this forum that £1.6 billion is a drop in the ocean, but it’s a lot more than the government are prepared to give towards our struggling health service.

Foxygloves

I don’t like the whole principle of % pay rises!
You could give me a 100% increase on my OAP and it would still be a heck of a lot less than the consultants are asking for! Nurses and HCA’s are on much lower pay scales than doctors so even an “across the board” % pay rise would be inequitable. So the gap gets ever greater.
🎶The rich get richer and the poor get, well, very little🎶

% pay rises have always been misleading. 6 moths after I started a paper round, I got a 200% pay rise and still earned under £10.
Say what they earn and then say what the x% pay rise would mean.

Foxygloves

Industrial quantities of Berocca - failing that, hot toddies.

😂that made me laugh out loud.

silverlining48

Well where would we be if we were all something’ in the city.’
Who would do the stuff which allows others to make a comfortable living, the healing, the caring the cleaning the teaching, the policing and everything else which oils the wheels of society. It is not and should not be all about profit.

My pension after a lifetime of public service is a little under £6000 gross pa.

If it’s not about profit ( their own) then what are the doctors and consultants striking for? I think we know, it’s all about the money honey.Maybe if they did a little less private work and put more into helping NHS patients the waiting lists for the NHS would be a bit shorter.

Industrial quantities of Berocca - failing that, hot toddies.

Don’t rise to the Tory bait is my take on this one.

£319,800,000,000.

That’s the NHS funding shortfall between 2012 and 2022 less the 200 million.

But of course the issue is greedy staff. (That’s sarcasm, btw).

Well where would we be if we were all something’ in the city.’
Who would do the stuff which allows others to make a comfortable living, the healing, the caring the cleaning the teaching, the policing and everything else which oils the wheels of society. It is not and should not be all about profit.

My pension after a lifetime of public service is a little under £6000 gross pa.

Indeed. April 2023, MPs gave themselves a 2.9% pay rise. This gave them an extra £46 a week before tax. Pensioners, on the other hand, had a bumper (according to some) 10.1% under the triple lock and got £18 a week and then only if on the full "new" rate. Many will have received much less.

Public sector salaries are about much more than the monthly pay cheque, courtesy of the taxpayer.

The first part of that sentence is true, and as you point out, public sector workers are paid less than those in the private sector to compensate. But their salaries are not doled out by the taxpayer. They work for their money, are also taxed, and pay for hairdressers, solicitors and others in the private sector out of their taxed income .

I don’t like the whole principle of % pay rises!
You could give me a 100% increase on my OAP and it would still be a heck of a lot less than the consultants are asking for! Nurses and HCA’s are on much lower pay scales than doctors so even an “across the board” % pay rise would be inequitable. So the gap gets ever greater.
🎶The rich get richer and the poor get, well, very little🎶

silverlining, don’t forget public sector pensions, which need to be factored in. I only worked in the public sector for a few years at the very beginning of my career. I contributed 6% of my much-less-than-private-sector salary into the superannuation fund, as did my employer. The fund couldn’t be transferred to a private pension when I left. In the private sector I was a member of my firm’s pension scheme (far less favourable) until I became a partner and had to make my own arrangements - sadly I did so with Equitable Life but that’s another story. My old public sector pension, payable at 60, has performed very well considering the meagre sums I contributed. Public sector salaries are about much more than the monthly pay cheque, courtesy of the taxpayer.