Resident doctors synicsl strike again

That’s what posters are suggesting the doctors do… they knew the career and pay they were going to get….if they don’t like it then leave….same applies to everyone or is it only when it suits your narrative?

Id ban strike action for NHS staff and also railway and public transport staff as well

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Either they are do a lot of essential work and so striking causes disruption and delays

or they are just not there and/or are purely training at our expense with the nurses doing the work and saving lives, in which case doctors strikes shouldn’t be disruptive.

This is like the private school posts that I give wide berth to - they buy unfair advantage and spoon feed to give better exam results and opportunities whilst simultaneously being a waste of money.

@Whatisrichandhaveiearnedit Other sectors don’t have the striking power. It’s only certain groups and unions that can hold us to ransom. I’d agree to banning unions - like the police. It’s time to stop this continual nonsense. Private workers rarely strike now. Plus millions cannot just change jobs! As if!

@WhatisrichandhaveiearneditThe doctors get the training places and a 3.5% pay rise. They can accept both! We need this constant striking to stop. Others have accepted 3.5%. It’s not unreasonable and gives pay increases of 35% over 4 years. Many others would literally die for that and so many haven’t had great pay rises for decades.

@Whatisrichandhaveiearnedit Or indeed simply are not there. They are on strike!

I wouldn’t believe anything Wes Streeting says to that effect. Unfortunately, there does need to be an increase in consultant numbers for cancer if nothing else, unless you want a physicians associate doing your surgery or chemotherapy.

Disagree - nurses are the ones patients see as they are on the same wards for the shift and patients will see them working, being ever present and available and so have this halo. The others (doctors, physios etc) are all working from ward to ward, clinics, theatres etc and so give the impression of not being there for the patients.

Could you please explain the last bit for lay people, @Marchesman ?

I could be wrong but have the impression that LE posts are something of a dumping ground. Fine if you just need the dosh whilst focusing elsewhere, otherwise somewhat undesirable.
Do you think that some will actually be incorporated into training pathways? If so would that be a formalism or a genuine opportunity?

It won't.

Primarily because the govt decides how many consultants there should be and training numbers are adjusted accordingly. Wes Streeting has indicated there will be no increase in consultant numbers. So increasing the number of posts available to junior doctors now will simply move the employment bottleneck a few years down the road for the next government to contend with - which would presumably be very much Starmer's preferred option.

Secondly, if/when training post are increased it will probably be achieved by rebadging LE posts.

I'd say that was the nurses - who aren't going on strike and are far less well paid.

Just ban them from striking. If we really want a fair pay system we need to get rid of the NHS.

1000 fewer training places will harm patients over many many decades or even generations- loss of current doctors plus fewer doctors in the future. The impact will be over generations. I just don’t think is the right stick to use.

Well the strikes harm patients too. I’m in Scotland. All funding increases on NHS services are swallowed up by unaffordable pay rises demanded by doctors. We have no strikes but we have a far worse NHS than England thanks to a lack of funding.

Rolling over to pay demands massively damages patients.

So ask for more, strike or leave - same process that the doctors are going through.

I don’t understand the reasoning of “so and so profession/sector didn’t get a pay rise so nor should they”.

Resident Doctors seem to think they are the only people to have seen real terms pay fall since 2008! Its like they are the only ones affected by inflation.

Being married to a recently qualified consultant, I have a great deal of empathy for the lifestyle of a resident doctor. The hours, the expectation to just abandon roots and to hell with your partners' career - you're off to Carlisle for 5 years situations they deal with. With hierarchical attitudes remaining, the ass kissing required to get opportunities etc is nauseating.

Any other profession would have a company car, a company laptop and mobile etc. and have any courses, training and travel paid for. Not doctors!

But. they've enjoyed pay rises far in excess of what the population as a whole has received. To strike over pay is wrong. But its the conditions that they should be striking over, not pay. The BMA is coming across as a militant an d petulant extension of the student union.

@Dragonscaledaisy Well I should have said not putting up with it any more!

It’s much easier to be a doctor than a highly paid lawyer, or management consultant.

Im also fed up with the God like pedestal doctors are on. Some of them, as in every profession, are poor. They have their defects like everyone else. The best do get to be consultants with private work and good for them.

The government has offered to ring fence training but in return for accepting the pay deal.

We cannot keep feeding this monster that is the nhs and accept poor productivity. Others don’t get high pay awards for being inefficient and the NHS needs reform. All the doctors who go abroad go to work accept it’s in insurance/private care. Yet here we are held to ransom by them and they are unionized. Working conditions are the same here for doctors as for ALL NHS employees but the doctors get way more out of it.

Well the poor government has to make some hard choices and it doesn’t like people to earn money and choose how to spend it freely.

The hard choices would include: freezing pensions, or other expenditure on old people; or spending on education or unemployment or benefits - for asylum seekers as well as for disabled people - so where do you want the cuts made? What limits are we willing to put up with?

Personally I think the failure to improve working conditions for doctors is a scandal, and that it is ridiculous to train doctors you then don’t employ but that is not what this strike appears to be about.

They are selfish. I work in local government and the current offer on the table for us in 26/27 is 3.3%. My husband works in the private sector and he hasn’t been offered any pay increase this year or in a lot of previous years. My sympathy for the doctors has waned massively and it feels like they can hold the country to ransom.

Where will we magic this money up for doctors?

If it was huge, I would have said a second year medical trainee earns hugely more than a first year trainee in a Magic Circle law firm.

Doctors get absolutely minimal London weighting. All Agenda for Change staff get multiple times what the doctors are paid.

With the London allowance, a second year medical trainee earns slightly more than a first year trainee in a Magic Circle law firm.

Outside London, The Law Society recommends that their trainees are paid £24,916 - roughly £20,000 less than a trainee in medicine.

I've worked with a surgeon who jumped over to Big 4 Strategy consultancy. He was excellent. Super bright, excellent team management skills and made the transition with ease. Also brought good perspective to the culture of what a true crisis really was.

Keir Starmer is most definitely 'putting up with it'. They've been on strike multiple times during the course of his leadership at a cost of £250 million per strike. He's weak and utterly clueless about how to deal with the issue and is throwing his dummy out of the pram now because the next strike is perfectly timed to do maximum damage ahead of the May elections - Starmer's judgement day.