How are the junior doctor strikes going?

[mids2019]

Do you agree with the pay demands?

Personally I would like to see the nursing strike settled first. The junior doctor strike muddies the water and if the RCN see doctors getting more than 5% then they are surely going to continue to strike.

If we are to agree to the pay demands should the increase be paid through increased taxes or borrowing or from existing budgets?

@bozzabollix

I agree with MPs pay rises being exorbitant is that some about consultants are paid considerably more than cabinet ministers and the PM. Not all professions can say this.

Agree with others. Extra pay won't solve the challenges they face unless it leads to more recruitment but then could we afford to pay more doctors on a higher salary?
Make their work life balance better and improve the awful NHS culture of toughen up and don't crack up and never say you can't do something or ask for help.

Best post I've read all day, much appreciated.

You do have to stay in the UK for at least a year post graduate else don't get full registration

I've been paying my student loan 10yrs now 400-500pm, I've still got 8k of debt and I was lucky enough to be one of the last to get the cheaper rate loans

The waiting lists are covered by consultants working weekends at premium rate so will be bought down that way

It's costs the taxpayer around £230k per doctor and they only have to stay a year....

The Times are reporting tonight that the nurses look set to reject the pay offer and more strikes will be on the way.

Are there pay scales, as in if junior docs go up by 35% will other docs see the same pay increase?

Would junior doctors agree to a higher pay settlement with lower pension expectation?
My father worked all his life in public service and acknowledged that the pay was lower than he would get in a private company - indeed at 30 I was earning the same as he was, and then overtook him, but always said his pension would give him many years of not having to worry. (over 30 years retired in the end)

It's the whole medical sector pretty much except the few and far between top echelon's. We all need a pay rise from the very bottom up as the care sector needs to work better to take the pressure off hospitals. Better working conditions for all that involve being able to take a piss and buy a bag of shopping without using the overdraft. Unless you want to start medicating and wiping the arses of your own relatives. Frankly we could work in Asda for better pay and conditions and leave you all to it....

@proppy

That was a question with A4C. The government has previously offered high percentage increases for lower bands and minimal increases for higher ones. The pay differentials were therefore decreased and there was some complaint about that. It would be an interesting government tactic to offer higher increases for the doctor lower bands as it would help to divide and conquer.

If government need to make decisions on public sector salaries who do they prioritise or should there be some general figure?

If we weren't treated like so appallingly nsodt wouldnt consider leaving

• I've had countless mates rotad to work their wedding despite giving 9m notice. I booked leave a year ahead when my ex was a teacher, to find I was on nights for everyone and if you don't swap the oncall (which is near impossible given hour limits) the leave is cancelled
• had a mate given a surgical job in Devon, his wife in Scotland, they had a toddler. They asked with no preference to be in the same area. The only reply was resign if you don't want the job
• we get 8 weeks notice of our rota if we are lucky.

-12 weeks notice of being allocated a random place in the UK to move to and work ...I mean I've lived in 13 locations in 12 years. You can't buy so stuck in crappy room shares in your 30s

• HR can expect you to finish a shift at 10pm in one trust and start another 5h drive away at 8am the next day... I had to get my parents tonempty my flat and move it from Nottingham to torquay while I worked an oncall and drive down afterwards. They want you to do said return trips on your days off just to show your ID as wont accepted a certified copy from another NHS Trust Hr team
• can't tell you how many birthdays or significant events I've missed in that time
• you have no say in where you work until you're a consultant so in most instances 34 yrs old
• I consider it a fab shift if I get a full 20mins to scoff food in a 13 h shift
• prior to Anaesthetics when my oncalls were more busy I never drank more than a few sips from a sympathetic nurse or ate at all. I could barely produce pee after 13h. In an Anaesthetics I grab quick gulps of tea between patients
• we pay at least a grand a Yr to be registered and indemnity
• all our mandatory exams are self funded- Anaesthetics has 5, cheapest is around 400quid highest nearly 800quid. They have about 40% pass rates so have to keep buying them as can't finish training without them (oz and nz fund them for their trainees as deemed essential
• mandatory courses clash with rotas I'm having to do one on my only day off in 7d soon (the rest being 13h days)
• I've basically lost all my friends from being dumped all over thr country by the application system. I'm down south but trained in Yorkshire and Midlands way so no chance of ever getting meet ups where our rotas matched
• I'm on the cheaper fee system I've been paying my loan 10y this year, still have 8k left
• I've worked every single Xmas (the entire 4d of either side) except 2 since I graduated in 2014.
• we have to provide our own tea coffee milk (post covid covid did get us donations)

That's why we leave. If we weren't treated as a number on an excel spreadsheet less would move to Australia...I've even received emails titled dear Dr x... cos their mail merge failed and they can't even be bothered to check our names are written

Yep national pay scale for trainees (non consultants so most are in our 30s). You can Google it.

F1s are going from 14 to 19ph

I'm nearly finishing training so upper end of the pay rise would be 23 to 32ph after the nearly 10y I've been working

It's the same as the mass exodus of icu nurses we lost post covid who get more money in waitrose. There's only so much more less stressful jobs out there that don't involve working 1in 3 or 1in4 weekends frequent nights long days etc that staff will leave.

I've been doing up my house (finally bought so stuck with 540 trains to work when placed in london), it's really made me think when paying trades people 3-4+ x my hourly rate if its all worth it. But hey we don't work for the money no other job would have the same job satisfaction

Pensioners have just been given a 10% increase. There is money there, of course there is.

The obvious reason is that pensioners are far more likely to vote Tory.

However, support for junior doctors and Nurses strikes has remained consistently high. What this current batch of Tories haven't seem to grasp is that:

a) pensioners are most in need of a fully functioning NHS over the next few years and the current challenges are quite frightening for them.

b) middle income Tories (those most likely to switch) have an inherent sense of fairness. That's why they were enraged by the Downing Street shenanigans. If they've received a 10% rise they'll be sympathetic to those 'serving' them.

Benefits have gone up 10% too (as they should), but it's perplexing how the government recognises the cost of living and inflation is effecting people and its fair to raise the amount they recieve, but when it comes to public sector workers this doesn't apply. Especially ridiculous when tonnes of people on UC work and the gov is only subsidising their wages as companies don't pay a fair wage in the first place.

So what next after these strikes? The government hasn't talked meaningfully to the junior doctors so is there a plan B?

Should the BMA align with the RCN so that strikes can be coordinated to maximise impact?

I support the doctors and unless they are given much better t and cs they will leave the UK in high numbers. And who could blame them?

@Destiny123

thank you for everything you do, most people support you, 💯

Thanks it means a lot. I only went to the picket day 1 as spent the rest of the strike writing my masters essay and doing the ton of paper work to continue next yrs training but public were so supportive and so so lovely, even got a few bags of chocolate! Only one horrid old guy sticking his fingers up and swearing on way to his appt

I'm a junior doctor myself and I expect to see general public response like this as you do not see half of the picture we see.

Re: Is pay increase gonna improve immediate patient care?
The answer is Yes.

Currently one doctor is doing at least two people's job, so each patient only gets half of the attention of a doctor so you can expect the doctor to be safe but by no means they can be thorough and treat all aspects properly. For example you come with stomach pain they probably investigate one or two main causes and let you go home and leave something like anemia untreated or don't even tell you about it.

A lot of doctors are doing sporadic shifts that is high paid but no continuity for patient care because the long term contract does not pay enough. If the pay is restored (35% increase is because there has been 26% paycut over the years) hopefully more doctors would remain in long term position then better continuity for patient care-so your doctor knows you and see you for more than once, would be able to provide care continously and not to risk making mistakes switching hands, and also be more efficient, eventually allow NHS to see more patients with the same amount of time.

UK trained junior doctors whenever they have means are all leaving to foreign countries for higher pay, if not doing sporadic shifts on a yearly basis in UK TO, just to make sure they can pay student debts after 6 years if medical school and not feel demoralised for the hard work they've put and the amount of sacrifice they've made to work in hospital-no social life, often poor health due to exposure to infections, shift pattern, and on top of that, constantly having to study and do exams in their spare time.

So if there's no pay-restoration you'll be less and less likely to be seen by a doctor when you're next in hospital. The NHS is aware of the shortage of junior doctors and over the years have made them stay longer in training by stopping them from progressing to senior level, and replacing them with less qualified nurse practitioners or physician assistants-who are already replacing a lot of work that used to be done by only doctors. Arguably that is a drop of standard in patient care. If you give birth in hospital and bled too much, or developed a complication, non doctors would not be able to spot it out for you-that could be difference of life and death.

I think we would.
Because many of us would probably not live to the pension age (now set 75) to enjoy it anyway.
Medicine is one of the professions that destined to shorten your life span.
I saw my team after maternity leave and 2 years later they grow like 5 years older, especially the mums.

My answer above is to this post

What are your views on the new NHS plan. Is the further investment enough to call off further industrial action. Yes, some doctors will leave but we are training a lot more?

What type of further investment? Well you see so long as they're not restoring junior doctors' salaries they're just beating around the bush.
Also as far as I understand the new plan includes hiring a lot more non doctors to do doctor's job, which I think is extremely dangerous.
The new doctors that they recruited for extra should have graduated now, yet the number of registration domestically is first time being exceeded by doctors registering (to practice in UK) from abroad. Also once these new doctors see the reality of what is it like working in the NHS, they'll want to leave too.