My payslip as a doctor in Feb 2021 during COVID

[Juniordoc]

See attached image. Yes this is for full-time work with weekends and nights in the currently stretched working conditions that the NHS provides.

This does not include the expenses and sacrifices of a six year medical degree. On top of that, we have to pay out of pocket for our own GMC membership, medical defence union, postgrad exams and revision courses, conferences and courses.

Please get behind us and support the strikes. We are burnout, exhausted and struggling to live

Lets hope in the meantime they don't make the wrong call because they are overworked and exhausted. A fantastic pension wont make up for that. Pay them properly for the love of God!

This is your F1 year ? Still in training ?

Would it improve much once you start your specialist training?

This figure includes the doctors salaries……

Completely behind you.

Are the doctors' strikes really more like the teacher's strikes in that they're legally only allowed to strike over pay, but really the strikes are over conditions?

The "look at my pay slip" posts are disingenuous and misleading because they are of the very first training year - pay goes up extremely fast, with a rise every year and a big rise after 3.

GPs aren't on Megabucks at all it's true but there it's the conditions that are the problem - if it were really a 40 hour week the full time salary would be great for Monday to Friday clinic/ practice based role with no antisocial hours. Consultants are extremely well paid.

The "but six hours of university!" posts are also disingenuous - doctors still actually don't pay for the full cost of their training and its not uncommon these days to have studied at university for six or more years. Even a regular classroom teacher still on the main pay scale will often have done at least five (undergraduate degree, PGCE and absolutely loads of teachers have a masters).

It's the working conditions for doctors which are shocking - attempts to claim the pay are shocking are usually based on partial information (passing off the one single 12 months on the first year salary without admitting that this is only for the very first new graduate year in which junior doctors are very much in training).

I have actually got a lot of sympathy for the strikes because of working conditions, but find the opening post dishonest due to it's intention to deceive through omission.

You can only strike for pay - how have people not grasped this by now.

ofc its about wider issues but the official line has to be for pay.

“You can't live on claps, gratitude or the hippocratic oath.”

You live by the Hippocratic oath. Not on it. It’s an oath, not a reward or a kindness.

My father is a GP and he would never ever go on strike. He cares about his patients too much, that’s why he chose to become a Dr in the first place.
Why choose to study medicine when you knew what the pay was going to be? Why didn’t you study law or something

As many have pointed out @Busbygirl, one of the reasons behind the strikes is due to the unsafe conditions that are causing patients harm

Four days of strikes are a drop in the bucket when it compares to the number of people dying due to inadequate care over the past years due to systematic underfunding

Doctors are earning less than they did 20 years ago. Your Father was lucky to be practicing in the decades he was.

Also for those saying consultants earn £120k after 6 years of qualifying. These are consultant pay scales, reaches £120k after 19 years as a consultant. It takes at least 7 years to get there after 5 years of medical school so earliest is 31 years after starting university and most take longer with extra degrees and research. Yes they are well paid bur they are highly qualified and comparable to other professions it’s not big bucks.

Oh definitely! I get that, but the wider discussions (news reports, interviews, general discussions like this) should focus on the conditions, threads like this are a bit disingenuous and cause people to narrow in on pay.

Do you tell the people on minimum wage to stop whining because they chose that job?

I can’t believe there are people saying that this is ok.

Yes OP may be a ‘trainee’ but it’s after years of uni and this trainee is working 40+ hours in difficult, stressful conditions for minimum wage.

Yes the pay increases and it’s worth it after a few years but I wonder how many junior doctors burn out way before that and leave the profession.

A trainee doctors wage is of course going to be much lower than a senior doctors but I do not want one of my doctors stressing about how they’re going to afford this months rent whilst dealing with me.

It’s also very unfair because over half of the country cannot afford to go to uni for so long and then work so many hours on minimum wage.
If you have kids then you’d barely be able to afford nursery fees.
As a mum I know that I cannot afford to train to be a doctor.

Doctors are not nearly paid enough for what they do. I don’t think the NHS works anymore. I think we should go private in this country then we’d be able to pay doctors a decent wage and stop them flocking to other countries. I know there are pitfalls to this and we would have to learn from the mistakes in the US. But as long as the government are in charge of medical wages, we will not be able to compete and the whole system will collapse. It’s already happened with dentistry.

The "but six hours of university!" posts are also disingenuous - doctors still actually don't pay for the full cost of their training and its not uncommon these days to have studied at university for six or more years

No this is disengenous @MrsMullerBecameABaby - the majority of people do not spend 6 years at university, and it's not uncommon for medical doctors to postgraduate qualifications too

In addition, they are required to pay for all exams which are mandated to progress from junior to consultant

But they were isolated expenses in a time of crisis - over a short period of time. People were trying their best in a time when governments were fighting over limited PPE. Track and trace was a good idea but in hindsight poorly implemented. Effectively this was wartime spending we will be paying for a long time. You want 35% which will be an ongoing cost year after year. It’s not sustainable the government cannot use the same debt/spending strategy to fund ongoing costs. Across the board professionals are not getting the same pay they were years ago.

@TheVanguardSix I know that but I'm fucking sick of people on social media quoting the oath as a reason to justify why we shouldn't strike.

Doctors are in this crappy situation with pay (consultants pay has dropped 35% in real terms over the past 15 years) because people keep guilt tripping us about the poor patients.

The poor patients will suffer a lot more when we are all out of medicine or practicing in other countries.

it's a brutal career pathway and demands a lot of you at all stages (I was up for 20 hours on Easter Monday as I was on call and in work to do cases at 8am and was still there doing a complex case until 02:45 on Tuesday morning and then couldn't sleep for hours when I got home as I was so full of adrenaline).

I love my job and I'm good at it. It's took 14 years (after 6 years at medical school) to train me. It's not going to be easy to replace me when I throw in the towel because I'm so fed up of being treated badly by the system.

Fully support your strike. My youngest son is on track to apply for medicine and now I’m a bit worried. Good luck to you all!

@Juniordoc

Behind you 1000% here also

Our government have relied on the good will of all the nurses junior doctors consultants and with hospital staff for far too long now.

For all the years of hard work that you put in before you even get to a hospital as a junior doctor to then have to pay your own registration fees yearly on a shit income is a pissyake frankly

To the poster commenting on what a lovely pension you will have,well what about in the now?

It's great paying into a pension that let's be honest we never know if we are goi g to get to enjoy it but if you do you've got to exhaust yourselves completely for donkeys years to get there??

I know higher band nurses that are having to do a lot of extra hours just to make their mortgage payments on top of everything else and yes I know a lot of us are feeling the pitch aswel but it's not exactly a good comparison

I have worked for 30 years building my career in a skilled industry

I'm not saving lives daily or trying to fight against a dangerous system with such bad staffing levels they organisation have had to create their own dedicated mental health service just for the staff ffs 🤦‍♀️

I earn a fair bit more than you for working 30 hours a week in a definitely not under staffed industry that doesn't involve any level near the stress nhs workers have to deal with on a daily basis.

I 1000% support your reasons and I really hope you all get a decent pay rise.

Sadly I can't see it being as much as you are all asking even though it's deserved but while our mps are upping their pay and giving money out Willy nilly but refusing to appreciate it's the staff that keep the system limping along nothing will change.

You deserve better. I understand and support the strikes.

@Busbygirl Why choose to study medicine when you knew what the pay was going to be? Why didn’t you study law or something

I do wonder that too! As I said above with law you can generally get to 100K within 6 years of A-levels at the most. Plus you get 3 months off every year!

With medicine, including uni, you take 14 years to get to consultant pay (100K range) at the very least.

I think anyone who gets into med school could probably make it into law, IB, consultancy, etc.

When they actually start choosing to do that though, the public will be very upset, but it will make complete sense 😀

Oh yes, I was looking at year to date.
I'm on the phone app so have to screenshot pics and then zoom in, all very blurry!

Wow! My friend’s a medical secretary and gets more than that! (In the private sector). Full support!

'Paying them properly' won't make them less exhausted and overworked. A change in conditions is what does that. I don't miraculously get less tired if someone hands me money...

I fully support the strike OP and am shocked by your payslip, I’ve attached my first F1 payslip from 2007 for comparison. I was also entitled to free onsite accommodation if I wanted it and had free car parking…! Other posters have mentioned that the strike is for pay restoration and hopefully this illustrates that point!