6 Day Doctors Strike

But don’t all medical students face the same challenges in taking on medicine? There are some other degrees in the sciences which also require hard graft.
I wish the poorly paid till operators, baristas and anyone on £14 an hour could get some respect for their work which has no career progression nor route to salaries well in excess of £100k.

The problems this country faces are not only due to poor government but to the BMA which has consistently failed to deliver trained medics in sufficient numbers.

At least a barista won’t refuse to serve you a coffee when you’re thirsty!

My great nephew put the work in to become a doctor from the age of 10 that I am aware of, putting in all the effort and extra work needed to make sure he had the grades needed to become a doctor. This meant staying behind at school to do extra studies and often missing out on social life with friends. He didnt mind....he needed to comple extra maths for example for the course he wanted. He succeeded and has worked long, arduous hours as a junior doctor including being a locum on a covid ward during the pandemic. He has never complained but it totally got to me when a relative shared a job advert on FB, forget what it was for but either a shop assistant or coffee shop server, around the £14/15 mark and he commented that was more than he gets an hour. How can a till operator be paid more than someone who has your life in thier hands? I fully support them despite being impacted by cancelled appointments and hope the government comes to their privileged senses......yes, most if not all can afford private insurance. Should be a condition of being elected that they have to use the NHS......we would soon see investment then I can assure you.

We must agree to differ. My preference is to believe what the ex-NHS director posted above. People in the private sector are paid by the private sector. Those in the public sector are paid by the taxpayer. It is pointless to compare the two.

Germanshepherdsmum

They are paid by the taxpayer. They can’t expect the level of remuneration available in the private sector, where salaries are paid by clients/customers who decide what they are willing to pay. See my post above as to actual rates of pay and also what the poster with experience of doctors’ pay said. We’re being fed lies by the BMA, doctors and media.

If you read the FullFact Louella posted, we aren’t being fed lies by the BMA, we are given the lowest case scenario of a newly qualified junior doctor. The average basic pay of junior doctors of all 4 grades is £43,000. Twist it as you will, it’s paltry compared with private sector pay. Where we disagree is that you appear to think that in a commercial environment people should legitimately be offered huge payments because of market forces, but that it’s acceptable for doctors to be paid much less because they are in the public sector. I don’t.

I am perfectly content with the society I live in, but then I spent most of my career ‘eating what I killed’, being only as good as my last job. I have never had the security of a job for life, like the rest of the people you mention.

It's all about the sort of society we wish to live in. Currently the top CEOs get paid as much as the average annual wage by lunch time on one day of the week. Bankers who bet against the success of UK businesses can make a lot of money without creating anything of value, accountants who find the loop holes in our tax system save rich people lots of money etc etc, people who add real value to our world by making us well, teaching our kids and looking after the elderly are undervalued. Choose the world you want to live in, I know which I prefer and will vote accordingly.

They are paid by the taxpayer. They can’t expect the level of remuneration available in the private sector, where salaries are paid by clients/customers who decide what they are willing to pay. See my post above as to actual rates of pay and also what the poster with experience of doctors’ pay said. We’re being fed lies by the BMA, doctors and media.

fullfact.org/health/bma-junior-doctors-hourly-pay/

Germanshepherdsmum

20% of a doctot’s salary isn’t chickenfeed. Paid poorly? I don’t think so.

Junior doctors are paid poorly. Can you think of another profession which pays somebody who undergoes the level of study doctors do and the continuing exams they undertake to progress to the next level that is paid at the rates they are?

www.bma.org.uk/pay-and-contracts/pensions/additional-pensions-advice/nhs-pension-contribution-rates

growstuff

Amalegra

It is highly unlikely that a Labour Government could afford the junior doctors pay demands! The real problem with the NHS, as with health services in many other countries, is that they are simply unaffordable! Our NHS was founded in 1948 for a much smaller population and when medicine was far less sophisticated. Even so, in the very first year of its existence it declared that more funding was needed and the government had to duly oblige. And so it has continued to a point where over 44% of all public spending goes to them to the detriment of many other essential services. We must reform the health service, in my opinion. A public private service may be the way as in other countries. If people are happy to spend on luxuries, such as take aways, holidays, new cars etc, surely they would not object to paying some sort of health insurance for their most important possession, their health? For those who cannot afford to pay there should of course be public provision. By the way the excellent pension packages that many NHS staff receive are never mentioned are they?

How do you work out that 44% of all public spending goes to the NHS?

The total public sector expenditure on services in 2022/3 was £1,067.5 billion, of which £211.6 was spent on health.

Source:

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-spending-statistics-release-july-2023/public-spending-statistics-july-2023#central-government-own-expenditure

9.3% of GDP was spent on the NHS in 2022.

20% of a doctot’s salary isn’t chickenfeed. Paid poorly? I don’t think so.

Germanshepherdsmum

When I worked in local government my employer contributed 6% of my salary to what was then called the superannuation fund and I contributed 6%. It was 6% of not a lot - when I started work I earned £750 pa, and when I left about £9k. Compare that with the NHS contributing 20.6% of a doctor’s salary into their pension scheme, throughout their career.

But it’s not relevant what you paid in a completely different rewards system years ago is it?
The employee contribution has increased in the current NHS scheme as well of course, and when you are paid poorly a 20% employer pension contribution is only partially beneficial. People should be paid the appropriate rate for their skills and experience, the smoke and mirrors approach you are putting forward to try to argue that isn’t the case is not fooling anybody.

It is highly unlikely that a Labour Government could afford the junior doctors pay demands! The real problem with the NHS, as with health services in many other countries, is that they are simply unaffordable!

The NHS has a key role to pay in the UK domestic economy. It's calculated that every £1 invested in the NHS produces £4 of economic activity. It sustains private sector businesses, large and small both directly by sourcing goods and services from them, or indirectly as the wages of NHS employees are spent into the domestic economy. The state will get back a large part of its investment by way of taxation of various forms as money moves around the economy.

It is complete and utter twaddle to say that government can't afford to pay the doctor's wage demands, or any other public sector wage demands, as the State, via government spending, is a key issuer of money into the economy. While there are resources to be purchased the State can purchase them.

One of the main reasons for the utterly dire state of the UK economy and our public services is that ever since 2010 the government has cut spending in the public sector and so reduced the supply of money in the UK.

Taxation doesn't fund spending...

When I worked in local government my employer contributed 6% of my salary to what was then called the superannuation fund and I contributed 6%. It was 6% of not a lot - when I started work I earned £750 pa, and when I left about £9k. Compare that with the NHS contributing 20.6% of a doctor’s salary into their pension scheme, throughout their career.

What relevance does the pension taken from local government of somebody who retired some years ago have to the current pay and pension prospects of junior doctors? Junior doctors now have much less favourable terms for the pensions they will receive - and they do not do the bare minimum in work either. Apples are not bananas.

GSM - good point. My experience on starting work 3as of a very poor legal department. This changed with the arrival of a hugely over enthusiastic newly qualified lawyer. Within a few years she was head of children’s services. What a difference. She and I once set to improving the initial statement of a good social worker who’d no idea what judges expect. She and I sat with him till 3am improving his statement. He learned so much and in another High Court case later, praised by the judge.
You’re so right, it’s people working hard, caring about what they do.

My local government pension, given the few years (13) that I paid into it and the low salary which I was earning throughout, has performed well. I can almost understand those colleagues who just hung around (doing, in the legal department, the bare minimum and leaving on the dot) waiting for their pension - but Lord, it was boring. What a waste of their lives and talents. Obviously not the same as your work Iam, which unlike mine would have made a real difference.

Amalegra

It is highly unlikely that a Labour Government could afford the junior doctors pay demands! The real problem with the NHS, as with health services in many other countries, is that they are simply unaffordable! Our NHS was founded in 1948 for a much smaller population and when medicine was far less sophisticated. Even so, in the very first year of its existence it declared that more funding was needed and the government had to duly oblige. And so it has continued to a point where over 44% of all public spending goes to them to the detriment of many other essential services. We must reform the health service, in my opinion. A public private service may be the way as in other countries. If people are happy to spend on luxuries, such as take aways, holidays, new cars etc, surely they would not object to paying some sort of health insurance for their most important possession, their health? For those who cannot afford to pay there should of course be public provision. By the way the excellent pension packages that many NHS staff receive are never mentioned are they?

How do you work out that 44% of all public spending goes to the NHS?

The total public sector expenditure on services in 2022/3 was £1,067.5 billion, of which £211.6 was spent on health.

Source:

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-spending-statistics-release-july-2023/public-spending-statistics-july-2023#central-government-own-expenditure

The excellent pension packages - far from being never mentioned - are mentioned all the time.
I’m a retired public sector worker. I contributed over and above to my pension, for 40 years. Friends who did my kind of work independently or privately earned twice what I did. I chose to stay in public service because I believe working in safeguarding should be not for profit. I earned less but knew I’d have a decent pension.
I’m the lucky generation, it’s very different for yiung people now, teachers, police etc all pay more into their pensions for less. I sat round tables with barristers earning 7 times my salary, a few of whom grumbled about our pension scheme

Amalegra Would public provision be the same as private provision or should those who can't afford to pay for private care expect worse care

It is highly unlikely that a Labour Government could afford the junior doctors pay demands! The real problem with the NHS, as with health services in many other countries, is that they are simply unaffordable! Our NHS was founded in 1948 for a much smaller population and when medicine was far less sophisticated. Even so, in the very first year of its existence it declared that more funding was needed and the government had to duly oblige. And so it has continued to a point where over 44% of all public spending goes to them to the detriment of many other essential services. We must reform the health service, in my opinion. A public private service may be the way as in other countries. If people are happy to spend on luxuries, such as take aways, holidays, new cars etc, surely they would not object to paying some sort of health insurance for their most important possession, their health? For those who cannot afford to pay there should of course be public provision. By the way the excellent pension packages that many NHS staff receive are never mentioned are they?

sazz1

Just looking at the junior doctors on TV happy smiling faces while people will die from delayed appointments and my niece in agony for 14 days on their previous strike. Do will really want these people with no care or compassion caring for us when we are desperately ill? Government could open up immigration to qualified doctors abroad and hopefully get rid of these charlatans.

I don't know one person, of our age or younger, who thinks UK medics are charlatans. What a strange word to use.

There always was in teaching 'grow stuff 'it was called the "London Allowance".To get teachers to work in ares others wouldn't or couldn't afford their accommodation.

icanhandthemback

"Funding is available if you're studying to become a doctor or dentist and you're:

studying a 5 or 6-year undergraduate course (you can apply from year 5)
studying a 3 or 4-year graduate-entry course (you can apply from year 2)"

I know in Wales 4 years ago you had to agree to work in the NHS for a couple of years if you get funding. I don't know whether it is the same in England.

£1,000 p.a. is a non means tested grant available to any student that meets the criteria, payable for the 5th year (or 6th for those who intercalate), for students who are doing a post grad course, it is available for years 2 -4.

There are also means tested bursaries which depend on whether the student is living at home or not, for those who come from lower income households. Max amount just over £3k for the poorest student living away from home in London. Students can also apply to charities for funding.

Golden hellos are offered in the private sector of course, where deemed appropriate and worthwhile by the employer, but up to the employee what they spend the money on. It would be a very unusual graduate starting their first job who warranted a large incentive - law, for example, is a hugely oversubscribed profession at entry level. I don’t know about teaching.