AIBU to agree with Starmer on the doctors' strike?

"student doctors" are medical students. After they qualify as doctors, they still face 5-10+ years of training (as Resident doctors (formerly known as junior doctors)). During this training they have to apply for further training places more than once, sometimes every 2 years (e.g. apply for foundation places, then core training, then further speciality training). So lack of training places does affect them. Then after that they are consultants or GPs.
Consultant and GPs are still affected by lack of training doctors because training doctors are an essential part of the team.

(Also, some doctors may be striking out of principle of how the medical profession is being treated, rather than because the changes will directly affect them.)

Why? Doctors will all be in the top 5% of earners in the country once they work through the system. 95% of people will never get anywhere close to what they earn. It's greed. Pure greed.

I don't have sympathy with the strikers but I can't see how they are affected by removing training places. That will only affect current students (and the rest of us if there aren't enough doctors).

By giving them training opportunities instead of a series of yearly contract.

Just to be clear though, the number of training posts aren't being cut and there will still be as many doctors as there were. The government had said they would convert 1,000 doctor posts into trainee doctor posts if there were no more strikes and now they won't. Doctors can still occupy those hospital posts, just not as a trainee. They can and do, however, still get trained in their hospitals and eventually (through a fairly complex process, it has to be said), become a Consultant.

Alongside this offer of converting hospital doctor posts to training posts was an additional scheme to actually increase the number of training posts - this is still under discussion.

I'm with Starmer on this one - am surprised he actually seems to be carrying out his promise to not convert the 1,000 posts, but this was made clear at the outset to the BMA, so he is just standing by the agreement he set out with the BMA a while ago.

I have also lost sympathy with the medics. I work in a field where we employ clinical staff and budgets are already set for the next three years. Any pay rises above what the government has offered will mean we will have to lose other staff/posts to balance the budget. There will be no additional money to cover the higher pay rises. We have already lost posts due to the previous pay rises. Including some clinical staff.

That's true but many, many people would like to be a doctor. It is a highly paid and highly respected career. It also demands a huge level of state investment so in many ways it is a privilege to get to be a doctor. Many super clever people won't get this opportunity.

Well obviously you would create at least that many new jobs. The point is though that mixing domestic applicants with international applicant numbers completely skews the stats and make it seem that the scale of the issue is much bigger than it actually is. Someone upthread tried to suggest that we were 20 thousand vacancies short which is wrong. I think we need to look at changing visa rules until the problem is completely resolved .

Being a doctor is a huge commitment, involving many years of intensive study and training.

Do we want really clever, skilled doctors who are trained really well in the U.K.? If so, we do need to pay them more.

Strong disagree. I’m in Scotland. Here the government increased NHS funding - great - but it was entirely swallowed up by inflation busting pay rises. Our hospitals are much worse than in England and there seems to be no concerted effort to improve things. Nothing will get better until wage inflation is addressed.

That doesn’t change the fact that there weren’t/aren’t enough jobs. Even if you remove all the applicants from abroad that still leaves a couple of thousands of junior doctors without jobs. How can you force them to work in the NHS?

The approach is a bit like a headteacher giving the whole school a detention on a Saturday because one class has misbehaved. It strikes me as totally inappropriate. Surely anything that negatively impacts patients should be avoided from the Government's side?

This. We need more doctors and they take years to train. KS should not use training places as a bargaining chip every time he doesn't get his own way. His poor decisions have a direct result on our quality of life in future years.
His instincts are way off - again.

I personally think that removing the unions from negotiations would be a huge starting point...

I totally agree with this it's a fucking ridiculous decision. It's like a child snatching his toys away because he doesn't get his own way. It's disgraceful.

But I also entirely agree with him taking a stance. He needs to do something to stop the strikes but this is not the answer.

Young medics are being influenced by extremists, it's not just a problem because of the strikes, it much much deeper than that. The mess the unions are creating is causing unsettlement throughout the NHS. Senior, outstanding calibre people don't want to work for the NHS anymore. We have some outstanding people at non-exec level who could help to shape the future of our NHS but they won't touch them with a barge pole because of the toxic environment being created by the resident/junior doctors.

YABU- I will say I’m a doctor (though not a resident) and I genuinely believe that whatever side of the argument you are on, I don’t know why you’d think this response is the right one. Please explain it to me- how does cutting training places help anything at all? The real losers are current medical students and the NHS as a whole. If you are trying to “force” the strike to be called off, this was one of the most self-defeating way to do it. It’s just posturing to look strong and make people think they are “sticking it” to the recalcitrant Dr’s, whilst doing nothing of the sort and halting the correction to systemic problem within the UK medical training system at the same time.

Let’s face it, all this means is either a) there are not going to be training posts for UK medical graduates- they will be forced into going abroad to complete training, going into locum work (as either appointment for training or service- the former is expensive for the NHS and uncertain for the Dr, so worst of both worlds for all parties) or leaving the profession. How exactly this threat helps the NHS is beyond me. Alternatively, option B)if there are shortages of UK graduates leading unfilled training posts, we’ll just continue to “import” junior doctors from abroad- which is not great for a number of reasons- firstly, we are taking another countries graduates (often countries who need their doctors as they can ill-afford to train them to have them leave). Secondly, whilst many are very talented and hard-working, some do need extra training to work effectively within our system and there can be barriers which take time to work through. Not all “hit the ground running”. Thirdly, many foreign trainees will stay in the Uk, but a not insignificant number will only stay until they have completed royal college examinations or get to consultant level (or sometimes do a year or so). and then leave to go home or for more lucrative posts abroad-taking all their experience and knowledge with them. There is a reason we have consultant shortages in a number of specialties- this is only one part of that puzzle, but it is an issue.

Yes, I do. They've had good payrises to catch up and are offered a few percent now which is what everyone else gets (if they are lucky). We can't afford to give big payrises and train a load of new doctors. I had every sympathy with them a couple of years ago but now they are taking the piss.

The bma didn’t even put the suggested package to the vote! Disgraceful to not even see what the members actually thought. They are a disgrace (the bma)

Ridiculous that we allow student doctors and nurses to work for nothing and then no jobs at the end of it, they either need to stop training as many or actually have jobs available for them.

I thought the resident doctors wanted jobs though. They clearly WANT to stay here but there aren’t enough jobs.

Since visa restrictions have been removed a large percentage of these will be from international candidates.

All the doctors had to do to secure the training places was to drop their pay demands. That’s all. Their greed caused it. Their members will suffer as a result.

Absolutely they can apply abroad. I imagine we would still fill all our places though as medicine is currently massively oversubscribed. Interestingly international places are the most oversubscribed so it would suggest that those that don't get any subsidy from the government and can choose to train anywhere in the world still choose the UK.

How can you force them to stay and work in the NHS when there aren’t enough jobs to go around?

ETA Last summer there were 30,000 applicants for around 10,000 jobs, although some of those were doctors applying from abroad.

Absolutely no reason why they should choose to train here though is there? They hold the power here not Sir K. If people are made to commit to the NHS they will train overseas. Many already do