To think large proportions of the population do not understand how consultant job plans work?

And yes a PA is a ‘programmed activity’ which is a half a days work that job plans are divided up by.
The fact that OP thinks that Mumsnetters at large will understand that niche piece of info is very odd and socially unaware.

Obvious that OP has an ulterior motive here and is not a medical consultant, someone allied but not necessarily clinical. What OP describes is not my experience at all and allies to what @Nameychangingtonsays.

You are also talking in a very niche way about essentially surgical jobs. I guess you are some surgeons secretary or something. There are a million different consultant jobs across many different specialties and in the community as well as in hospitals. YABU to apply your experience of one very niche area as though it applied to all of us. What you say has zero relevance to me in a community job where I do not do ‘procedures’

Of course the job entails more than just seeing patients. Admin is essential as otherwise how will letters get written and replied to, patients and GPs called back, results reviewed, onward referrals made. This all takes time and for most of us way more time than is job planned. I usually wind up using my SPA time on supporting clinical activities like that.

The other thing that takes up time is leading and supervising my team, MDT meetings etc. Obviously the most senior person does not just do all the direct work as this would be inefficient. They supervise and lead others doing work which means you need to talk to them and go over their cases. This takes time but less time than if I did every single thing myself. I am line manager for any of the junior Drs as well so I have to deal with their leave requests, sickness, grievances, performance management etc etc as well as teaching and training them and the med students That takes way more time than is assigned in the job plan.

and yes consultants are required to do non contact stuff to lead the service. Who do you think replies to complaints, conducts investigations when things have gone wrong, audits outcomes to make sure they are on track and makes and monitors plans to address deficiencies and improve things? Are these not things you think Drs should be doing?

I am on site working clinically 4 days out of 5 but I am not back to back seeing patients all of that time as I have all the rest of that stuff to do. I can assure you that I work solidly 8-6 at least and often longer with no lunch break and have done for the entirety of my career because there is always something that you could be doing. There is a bottomless pit of need which we are all painfully aware of.

I don't think people outside any profession understand the nitty gritty of how a profession works.

I'm a nurse, my job role entails 50% direct clinical work, with the rest broken up into teaching, planning and research. I can empathise with the fact that I always, always end up having more clinical work that needs doing than fits into half my week, and so things like my research or training gets squeezed or pushing into my personal time. It isn't fair, but things are pretty tricky in the NHS right now, and I think those of us with seniority have to take a hit to try to hold things together.

I don't agree with your calculations about days at home if 75% of your job is direct clinical work, I'd expect someone in 4 days in that case.

7.5 PAs of clinical activity is 30 hours - that’s 4 days a week doing 7.5 hours a day. That feels about right surely?

Well if you can't be arsed to reply to your clear as mud post I can see why things never change or get any better for you...

@FateAmenableToChange in some areas I totally agree with you. Care on elderly wards I have witnessed is awful. We don’t complain enough but we also want something for nothing. We need insurance to supplement NHS. As nearly everywhere else does. Even Australia that takes our disillusioned doctors. They take nhs training and then zoom off to a mostly pricately funded system.

Look I am a consultant and I find this boring as hell. It’s pretty self centred to think the general public give a shit about the intricacies of medical job plans. I don’t know anything about teachers or lawyers jobs.

@museumum the OP knows this. She’s stirring up trouble. Welcome to the world of the Reform (or similar) thinker.

Why would an ordinary member of the public, not in your profession, be aware of any of this?

Universities, local governments, the judiciary, medical professionals-they all seem to be unpopular these days, don’t they?

YABU to think that it would ever occur to people to even think they might need or want to know about this! Why would they?

The only consultants I know are my age (40) and female and I can promise you the old fashioned cliche of the older male consultant on the golf course does not apply at all.
They all that I know work their asses off all week for full time and more hours while their partners take on most of the family responsibilities at home. it’s a tough job, after many tough years qualifying and most are overachievers since their school days with a crazy strong work ethic.

i think it’s quite possible that the NHS is the most toxic and inefficient organisation in the world. This is just one of many examples. My experiences with it have been shocking and when I talk to others it’s seems completely normal to experience ‘care’ that leaves you with PTSD. People here are so willing to accept treatment that would not be acceptable in other countries. I guess unless you have experienced health systems in other countries you don’t realise what it can and should be like.

Sorry wrong post!!

From Google...

It is interesting to read, even if I didn't really understand all of the terminology, I get the gist of what you're saying I think.

Tbh it doesn't surprise me, human nature is generally pretty selfish and in most lines of work (as well as chosen unemployment) people do what suits them. So it isn't a surprise that a consultant works less hard for the NHS, compared to a private waiting list which presumably they get paid for per patient, per procedure.

Most doctors are probably just as selfish as the rest of society!

1 PA admin. Don't make me laugh.

In nearly 20 yrs of being a consultant, I don't think I've ever had an admin session. I've tried a few times but they immediately get trashed by an emergency.

No, I'm not great at doing my admin. Because there aren't enough hours in the day to do it.

How many people understand the minutiae of other people's jobs? Do you? And what's a PA when it's at home?

I've worked in hospitals and all I've seen is Consultants juggling a hundred tasks. I'm in hospital with my DD2 right now. She's been examined by 2 junior doctors. They took 20 minutes or so to examine her. They were diligent. They both identified priorities for her care, and reassured me that her chest was clear.

The Consultant came along. Less than 5 minutes. Brisk but through examination, clarifying history, showed the junior doctor where she would hear the crackles of her chest infection, and listed the plan.

That's because he's done it a million times. He's spent his time taking histories, listening to chests, palpating abdomens, working through differential diagnoses, etc.

I don't want that Consultant to be doing all the work. It's not his job. His (or her) job is service delivery. That means that the Consultant is ensuring the patients get what they need, including a next generation of competent doctors/surgeons. That takes time. You can't be doing and teaching and doing admin, strategically planning, assessing referrals, etc., all at the same time.

I've met great doctors who I would trust with my family but wouldn't want to chat to them socially. I've met doctors who are really nice but not actually that good, and everything in between. None of them have been undercutting the NHS.

There will be a mixture of good and bad consultants. I disagree with Consultants using NHS facilities (private wing) and having a mix of private and NHS patients. I think it is a conflict of interest and no other NHS profession is allowed this privilege. Or are they? I don’t know of any.

What a strange thread! I can assure you that large proportions of the population don’t understand how my job works either.

I do not find this remotely surprising or interesting.

I think she means medical consultants, not "consultants" of the KPMG sort.

But that reminds me, I worked in the civil service for a while, we were told to reduce the number of consultants. So we brought in a consultancy to look at that for us.......

Well in fairness OP, you're not exactly making it clearer.

Why would they understand? People don't have the mental bandwidth or interest to be informed about jobs that aren't their own. No one understands my job either, why would they?