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

2700 take home with I assume a 10% pension plus employer contributions is around 45/46k - a pretty good wage. And 3 years out of uni, it’s fucking excellent.

Would you prefer to keep that wage as is and do less hours/ have better work life balance or is the money the more important thing?

OP, I’m hearing you. I’m reading your posts. I’m reading others’ posts. I’m learning more and understanding more and my mind is asking different questions now. I do see your hard work. I know your hard work. I’ve depended on it. I’m alive because an A&E junior doctor broke my ribs saving my life. Best pain to recover from because it reminded me that I survived. Your colleagues are why I live. So, I stand with you.

I still do depend on your hard work. We all do. And I’m deeply grateful to you and your colleagues for oiling this dying engine of a healthcare system (which is really an industry that you are being exploited by). Saying those words have me wondering why I wouldn’t support you. I’m so focused on your future possibilities but if now isn’t working/ functioning, and you are being soul destroyed and unsupported in real time, then your future possibilities vanish. They mean nothing if you are suffering now. I understand this.

You need to decide do you want a good NHS or not, one thing is for sure Tory's don't give a shit about the NHS

In a decade or 2 we will not need as many doctors. AI which has already proved itself better than humans at diagnosis and decision making in this field, will replace about 60% of doctors. Not so nursing , cleaners and many other NHS roles

It says "pension contribution for that month is 1567", are you really contributing that huge amount to your pension every month?

But your salary jumps up much more quickly than some other jobs, and in a few years you’ll be earning much more.
I’d be interested in what your payslip
looks like now after you have completed
your first two years of F1/2 training? Could you share that?

I’m all for more pay for junior doctors I think it needs to be more~ as do so many other jobs (carers/nurses/teachers) but not sure I agree with the strikes. The pay off being a doctor is after a few years you earn considerably more. A lot of the Drs I know are doing fairly well for themselves. Obviously conditions need to improve too, & doctors are getting burnout- but I’m not sure this is what this strike is about?!

Why should people on minimum wage not pay towards doctors training? They all use doctors when they're sick, same as the rest of us.

I’ll get my post deleted I’m sure but it’s got to be said, @nighthawk99, what a shit-for-brains you are.

If there’s one thing we all need throughout our lives, without fail, it’s doctors. From birth to death and in between. Wise up, you total moron.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.

I’m fully behind you @Juniordocand thank you for all you do.

All those saying they’ll be earning more in years to come and the pension will be good, how does that help now? Can they go into Tesco and say they’ll pay for their shopping in 10yrs time? Nope. So it makes not a jot of difference to the here and now.

The NHS has run on goodwill for far too long and it needs to stop.

That appalling. I fully support you and your colleagues in strike action

My cleaner charges £18 an hour! yes but do you pay her annul leave? Pension? Sickness? Your cleaner won't progress up a career path. If op becomes a GP or consultant she'll be earning anything from 75-100k.

I agree for level of responsibility the pay of F1s and F2s isn't great, but nor is nursing or AHP pay great. Working in the NHS isn't well paid, it never has been. The difference is previously drs got lots of good perks, which kind of made up for lousy pay. Nurses and AHP, were largely women and it was seen as 'a nice little job'! Modern day healthcare is a very different thing in 2023 to the 1960s. Work load, responsibility, expectations have all increased, but pay (in real terms) hasn't. Perks have all but disappeared and working conditions are far worse. Whilst I don't know about drs. I do know that most AHP have to pay for their own training...even though are legally obliged to do xxxhrs of training per year to keep our professional registrations, we also have to pay professional fees. Paying for car parking if you are lucky enough to get a parking space is payable by all NHS staff.

Dear, oh dear... Best hang onto your minimum wage job, in that case.

I'm with you, doctor. I hope that your strike gives you better pay and conditions.

There is an extremely tiny pool of students who are actually smart and caring enough to choose a medical degree. This skill set is rare and valuable.

Just because medical students know it's hard work and not paid well does not mean we have to exploit their altruism: We take the best of the best of our youngsters and work them into the ground, like those donkeys you see in the sky news clips.

They are worth more.

Sorry but 35% is unaffordable.

I’m going to be unpopular, but … I think this continual parading of F1 payslips is disingenuous. It’s an ok graduate salary (not amazing, granted, but ok), and the progression is good. FY1/2 are still in the practical part of their training and whilst they do have a difficult job, they are supervised. Then there is the employers pension contribution of 20% plus the guaranteed job for life (especially if we have a shortage of docs). Within 4 years you’re over £50k per annum plus extras, it’s not a bad wage, or at least there are other equally vital jobs with much worse reward. For comparison, I also work in the public sector, I have a PhD, and it took me 15 years post undergraduate qualification to break £50k pa.

My last brush with the NHS involved me, a non medic, to tell the F1 doctor what the protocol for my child was (basically to call ENT, take bloods and order IV abx as he was bleeding post tonsillectomy). Prior to that I had sat and held him for 6 hours whilst he slowly oozed blood, and I was ok because I thought ‘hey they are really rammed and will get to us as quickly as they can, all whilst watching my child slowly deteriorate’. I eventually found out we were sitting and waiting because he didn’t know what to do about the problem, allowing the infection that was causing the bleed to progress. So no, I don’t consider that junior doctors are fully qualified straight out of uni, all of that knowledge requires practical application to become truly useful.

I can totally get behind you on conditions and staffing, or any other culture related issue, but you are in danger of alienating everyone with your extreme pay demands. Retention of female docs in particular seems to be an issue and one that needs to be examined; if we are training doctors who are leaving because the career is incompatible with raising a family, then no wonder we have a shortage.

😯😯😱😱 Thats shocking! Good for the doctors fighting back at last I 100% support you all! And whilst the NHS was under strain and overstretched working like slaves those Tory bastards were breaking the rules they imposed and getting pissed and partying in number 10! We should bloody well make budget cuts to the MP's, no more two houses and no expense accounts! We'd save millions slashing their wages, expenses and getting rid of their houses I'd rather my taxes be spent on the NHS than those greedy bastards! The whole country needs to band together and show those selfish twats in Westminister there's more of us than them and we mean business they and the police can't do fuck all against millions of people after their blood! as Paul O'Grady once famously said about the tories "BASTARDS!!"

Rant over 🤣🤣🤣🤣

If doctors want more now they need to be prepared to sacrifice their future earnings.

Oh shut the fuck up ! AI bollocks! we will always need human contact in life . This is about NHS staff saving lives and the hard work they carry out not a robot riveting bolts onto a car FFS .

Doctors are not comparable to many other professions. They just aren’t. They deserve to be working in safe conditions and to be decently remunerated for the work they do.

Have a cardiac surgeon save your loved one after an unforeseen arrest, a paediatrician recognise meningitis in your child and save them before catastrophic effects rob them of a normal life, have an obstetrician save you during a postpartum haemorrhage following a traumatic birth, have an oncologist diagnose, treat and give you precious years with your parent, and have a geriatrician make the end of their life comfortable and dignified, and maybe you’ll appreciate the importance of medicine.

@xbp is a troll. I don’t know one solicitor who has three months off every year. Utter bullshit.

Average annual salaries of solicitors as published by the law society:

Greater London – £88,000
South of England – £56,000
Midlands and Wales – £46,000
North of England – £43,000

Junior doctors are not trainees.

I'm so sorry you and your colleagues are treated so badly.
If I can give an example of recent appointment at eye hospital.
Noticed an elderly very frail lady with obvious dementia accompanied by young carer.
When in a cubicle, heard a nurse asking doctor if he was okay? Response, 'Feeling so overloaded'. He went on to say he couldn't help elderly lady because her dementia prevented her staying still for procedure. That doctor was so stressed and upset. No one is paid enough to carry that type of burden.
While money couldn't help in that situation, going home exhausted, hungry and money worries does not help, is unfair and abusive.
Fully support all doctors being paid and treated fairly.

1st year junior drs aren't performing heart surgery their lucky if they even get to watch

Even if it is do you agree they deserve more than the 2% they’re been offered?

I want the Dr treating me to be 100% focused on me, not worrying about how they’ll afford the gas bill or the petrol to get to work.

That is shocking, and to put it into perspective, I have a long term illness that has meant that I have spent the majority of my life unable to work. I now live on my own and that payslip is roughly £660 more than I receive in benefits. I live on my own, I pay minimal council tax as I’m disabled and also get single person discount. I get free travel, a blue badge, and I obviously don’t have to pay into a pension scheme or have other things expenses like that.

£660 less.

I’m not saying benefits are too high, they’re not, I still struggle to afford everything, particularly as I have expenses others may not have, but I’ve not put myself through one of the hardest degrees there is, not do I literally spend the day making life and death decisions with an horrendous amount of responsibility on my shoulders.

You deserve better. So much better. And those of you trying to justify that pittance should be ashamed of yourselves.