To think the junior / resident doctors are greedy, selfish, entitled & lazy?

1. We pay taxes, unlike some "private " sector workers we cant fiddle these on self assessment, pay ourselves dividends and get out kids full student loans as one fruend has told me they did. I belive the words were creative accounting ( a very sore point in this house)

Tax is deducted on your pay slip, correct. It does not add to the amount of money that the government has available to spend, because it was paid to you out of taxation.

1. We.contribute to our pensions, and they are no longer final salery schemes

Correct. But they are defined benefit and still gold plated compared to the defined contribution paid into by most of the private sector. That's without even putting a monetary figure on the inflation proofing, surviving partner benefit and peace of mind from the certainty about how much you will receive.

1. Having worked over 30 years in the NHS i can assure you all the vast majority of staff dont get breaks, normally work in excess of their hours and miss alot of family events due to shifts. Not a issue.we know what we signed up for but the we need to privatise to increase efficany is laugable, we need adequate resources to improve efficany.

I don't doubt you are right about most of the staff working on wards and in A&E, for example. But I've unwillingly been in too many hospitals too many times in the last few years and by no means does it describe the jobs of everyone.

On Wednesday last week I watched for 4 hours while waiting for an eye operation as a day case. Two nurses booked in 3 people and put drops in their eyes. For 45 minutes they sat and chatted. Then they gave the first returning patient their discharge notes and medication and a cup of tea. That was repeated for another patient, then me. As I sat with my cup of tea they greeted 4 more patients and will likely have spent the second half of their shift chatting for the overwhelming majority of their time. This has not changed in the 11 years since I had an operation on a tooth in the same unit, it was the same then.

The anaesthetist did one local anaesthetic per hour and stood around waiting for the next patient. When I had cataract surgery in a private hospital the surgeon did the anaesthetic. In the NHS, with the same surgeon, their was an anaesthetist with similarly relaxed workload .

The nurses who do my routine eye tests in my local hospital have a very relaxed schedule, doing exactly the same job using the same machines as the technician in my optician used to.

I could give you numerous examples of situations like that, that you just don't see happen in the private hospitals. I love the NHS and the many people who work so hard in it but I'm fed up with the myth that every NHS worker is some kind of saint working themself to a frazzle, who deserves 10% off in the shops that are staffed by people working harder and for less pay than many of them are.⁹

@jamimmi Your dc get the lien based on your income. Most students get the minimum loan and parents top up. They don’t get the option of the full maintenance loan and that would apply to nurses on an average salary for nurses. You could try working for a different employer and give up your amazing pensions. If you really think the private sector is paying better, go and get it!

yep, any profession or job starts on a low salary and works themselves up. Doctors are no different.
As for nurses bleating on about low pay, I initially thought they must be on about 21K a year or something. Nope there are decent salaries to be made in nursing if people can be bothered to do the qualifications and rise up the ranks

Parents who are struggling to pay bills on their NHS salery and support a disabled husband. That's who, an exta 2 to 3 K on top of a minimun 4.5k might just cover the accomodation. Besides we keep being told to consuder it a gradute tax .

Who would want their children to take a full loan if they could afford to top up the minimum loan? It’s not a grant. That’s just weird.

I've no doubt it can be very difficult at times but many if not most jobs have their own particular difficulties and hardships.

But having worked in the NHS for 25 years I don't accept the picture I think many strike supporters paint which implies that resident doctors are having to put up with these deprivations and to make these sacrifices 24/7 in every specialty.

I had a regular follow up OP appointment at my local hospital yesterday afternoon and the resident doctors I saw later were enjoying lunch in the canteen. And while I was in the waiting room they were having no difficulty accessing the staff toilets. And they were sat down a lot too.

I also think the BMA leadership and strike supporters are being disingenuous when they only quote basic salary figures for Foundation 1 and Foundation 2 doctors without explaining any context.

If a staff grade or assoc spec is not going to end up with the salary and career prospects of a consultant then they really are the cinderellas of the NHS medical staff and I sympathise with them.

Apologies and thanks for putting me right.

I was responding to a question about what a resident doctor was and was trying to explain that they are doctors in training.

As you say, staff grades and associate specialists must be among the forgotten workers in the NHS as I couldn't find any current reference to them and assumed that apart from those still employed in the NHS they were being gradually phased out.

But I suppose if a resident/junior doctor isn't going on for whatever reason to become a consultant then there needs to be another career home for them

Nobody in my road was forced into clapping

We went wrong during covid with all the clapping for the NHS bullshit. Which the media forced us into. Made the NHS workers think they were some sort of elite gods - they weren't, they were just doing their jobs.

Have you studied a language to a fluency level/lived abroad/worked abroad? I have done all three in several languages so I can categorically say it is possible. Once again, you seem to think doctors are a lot dummer than they are in reality.

What's quite interestung is that the NHS appears to cope with the resident drs on strike. Whilst I say it with tongue firmly in cheek, it's hardly indicative of an understaffed institution.

You have no idea how the NHS or medicine works @OonaStubbs . If you look at jobs which are safe from AI, from organisations and experts that know more than you, you’ll see most healthcare related jobs are ranked very safe!

When you say adequate staffing, the NHS already employs 1.2 million people. How many more does it need?

What it really needs is to step into the 21st century. Stop writing letters would be a start. Most things should be able to be done automatically with a couple of mouse clicks. Embrace AI wherever possible.

Not quite. I did have fees (though small compared to today) and student loan. No free accommodation.

I was encouraged to go into medicine due to the EWTD coming into place. I think I was lucky and did hit the sweet spot and that my predecessors did have it harder than me just due to the hours. I respect your experience that you had it easier, and have heard the argument that you were more of a team and the demands (in terms of complexity of medicine and the patient expectations) were less, but it still comes down to hours for me! I couldn’t do it. There are far more accounts of working crazily and certainly little time for sleep or PlayStation!

We work far fewer hours these days. But still some residents think it is outrageous that they might have to stay beyond 5pm. Every other professional in different sectors knows you put the hours in, particularly at junior levels. Some of the residents seem to think they should be working like a factory worker, clocking in an out at the exact time, but expecting professionals’ wages. I’m guessing lots live in a bubble, with friendships made up from other people from medical school, and don’t realise how the outside professional people live.

As per PP, this is the basic rate, not adding on the unsociable / out of hours stuff which almost all FY doctors will get. Just repeating this fact, as it’s a very misleading figure that the BMA and the resident doctor supporters on this thread keep returning to.

Just been scrolling through this, my appologies if I repeat anything. Just a few points from and NHS worker.

1. We pay taxes, unlike some "private " sector workers we cant fiddle these on self assessment, pay ourselves dividends and get out kids full student loans as one fruend has told me they did. I belive the words were creative accounting ( a very sore point in this house)
2. We.contribute to our pensions, and they are no longer final salery schemes
3. We do have KPI's ,introduced by the Tories I think, this led to ridiculous numbers of non clinical staff to manage out comes and improve efficancy. We dont need half of them, out patient booking, estates, med secs ,cleaners definatly though
4. Yes we could reform the NHS , but this will lead to much higher bills for all even if we adopt a french system, having said that perhaps it means the public will actually attend appointments and not cancel.last minute
5. Having worked over 30 years in thw NHS i can assure you all the vast majority of staff dont get breaks, normally work in excess of their hours and miss alot of family events due to shifts. Not a issue.we know what we signed up for but the we need to privatise to increase efficany is laugable, we need adequate resources to improve efficany.
6. I dont actually support the stike for pay rises BUT I would support them to stike.for improved conditions and adequte staffing.

Band 5 nurses are senior enough to be left in charge of wards. When they are, who do you think identifies that a patient requires intervention? This is a decision that as a clinical adviser for PHSO level complaints I have seen messed up by registrars and consultants with fatal consequences. Countless times, I have personally been aware of relatively junior nursing staff preventing F1s from making the most serious errors.

If an F1 is called to a patient who is deteriorating, with any luck they will call someone more senior to make management decisions. This doesn't always happen when it should, because junior doctors too often overestimate their competence. Which isn't surprising when they are constantly flattered in social media, by the BMA, and by the nature of their training.

I am sure if I go through your posts, I will find plenty that you made up. If you want to play that game.

@Askingforafriendtoday Yes, quite. F1 £45k, F2 £55k. Equal numbers => £50k average.

digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-staff-earnings-estimates/august-2025

@Clavinova And that’s ignoring the 25% plus we contribute on top towards pensions! It’s a very good package in my view!

Not quite re F1 F2 pay

Your link doesn't show average pay or allowances, only basic pay scales.

If you click on View pay circular you will see there are additional allowances, e.g. weekend allowance and on-call availability allowance.

Last year the Nuffield Trust estimated that the average total NHS earnings for FY1 doctors was £45,900 and £54,400 for FY2 doctors. The previous poster is correct if you combine the two grades to calculate an estimated average salary.

@HugoElephant I bet I don’t! They would need to be very competent to get a medical job with GCSE French! Thats about all doctors will have. No A level and no enhanced MFL learning. Why would they? Would we have a French doctor here with very very basic English? Hopefully not. There’s no evidence we export UK educated doctors to France.

Agreed.
Have NEVER heard of band 5, or indeed 6/7 nurses making life/ death decisions and all such are passed to a doctor, as they should be.

That poster has an axe to grind and is making a lot of things up.

Not quite re F1 abd F2 pay
https://www.bma.org.uk/pay-and-contracts/pay/resident-doctors-pay-scales/pay-scales-for-resident-doctors-in-england

Also band 5 staff nurses refer life/death decisions to doctors if they are the most senior nurses on duty

Speaking from personal experience of living and working abroad, I think you overestimate the difficulty in gaining fluency in foreign languages.

Pay my own wages by your logic then, like other doctors.
Likely pay a heck of a lot more tax than you too.

@GoieWe need to look at the whole tax and work situation in France to appreciate how they spend more but it’s not a NHS there. I suspect it’s a more productive system too.

As for doctors learning MFLs! They mostly gave them up at 16. Some at 14. We don’t care about MFLs here and of course they cannot work anywhere other than English speaking countries. The vast majority anyway. Others could work in the country of their extended families no doubt but that’s often not a better job.