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

We support the strikes and thank you and all of your colleagues , always

But that’s not comparing like for like; many trainee accountants and lawyers earn less than a trainee doctor in the first few years, and doctors have far more certain career progression. Doctors also earn far more than this when qualified. Indeed, the F2s I know that do some on-calls, some nights and an extra shift or two a month are more worried about hitting the 40% tax bracket than what they earned as an F1…

That said, they clearly deserve an increase, but 35% is not only unrealistic but way out of line with the rest of Europe. If the BMA was more sensible they’d try and do a 5 year deal, for something like RPI plus 2% each year. Which would be 12% or so now, and an additional 10% above RPI (ignoring compounding) getting them much closer to ‘pay restoration’ than the current somewhat naive negotiating position. Given that the BMA allowed the pay to fall behind over more than 10 years, closing the gap in 5 could be seen as a win ;)

What I genuinely do not understand is when you applied to med school @Juniordoc you'd know the salary scale then.

Why did you apply? It's a hell of a fight to get a place so I don't understand why anyone goes through it all only to complain about their salary in Year 1.

Did you think that in the time it took to qualify salaries would rise?

You will get a bloody good, gold plated pension and that shouldn't be forgotten. Far more than many other professional graduates working the same hours or more, some of whom don't get any pensions at all with their jobs.

As a hospital sister, the strike has my full support. People don't have a clue what your role involves. On top of everything already mentioned there is the constant study at home. The pressure and need to publish.

My husband has been a consultant over a decade and after his day at work he's sat at his desk right now preparing teaching for grand rounds.

He is also happy covering his junior staff this week and joined them before and after work each day. Our eldest son is looking like he will be applying for medicine, honestly I wish he wasn't.

You are year 1 on just over £28k net with a huge pension, extraordinary sick benefits and annual leave plus secure employment. I personally think that your basic pay should be considerably higher and this should be achievable especially of the unrealistic sick pay and pension benefits can be reduced in line with private sector. I am supportive of you. IMHO the NHS is an extremely wasteful and badly run organisation and if it can be less wasteful then This could also help afford considerable pay rises.

I support you, but honestly, you should just emigrate!
You'll have a better life

@CallintheClownies

graduates, schmauduates

Anyone with half a brain can get a degree and be a graduate. You can't compare a junior doctor with a tesco management trainee, just because they're both "graduate professions"

I'm very mixed about this, @Juniordoc

I do not support strikes, and I know I'm an MN anomaly for this. I don't support any strikes (did not go on strike when I was a member of a striking union), and I particularly don't support strikes which can be seen, rightly or wrongly, as a great big 'fuck you' to people (patients) who were royally shafted by lockdowns and who are still either waiting to see medical professionals or have spent their life savings on seeing the same medical professionals, but privately.

I am also riled by the sense of entitlement which people who work in public services feel, when self-employed people can't afford to strike or be sick or do anything, ever, other than work. I'm not just talking about people on zero hours contracts: I'm talking about people who run their own businesses that actually keep the economy churning along. These people often have either no or very few prospects of improving their lot, either, unlike doctors/barristers/university teachers/teachers and so on.

At the same time, I was fortunate enough to be seen once by a doctor in A&E following an accident, to whom I would have paid several million if I had had it going spare, because she was so utterly brilliant both medically and as a human being.

As I say, very mixed.

But my question to you is more abstract. The NHS is quite clearly no longer fit for purpose, but no political party dares to be the one that puts it out of its misery as they know they are up against the mawkish sentimentality attached to "our NHS", and it's a vote-loser. My question is: given that the NHS is already unviable in the eyes of anyone reasonably well informed and with no particular political axe to grind, do you not fear that your strike action will turn out to be the thing that finally kills off the NHS for good?

There's another thread about how your household income compares using this tool (https://ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/where_do_you_fit_in#tool-results-section)

If you put in a single F1 on approx £1900 a month (as in the pay slip), they are better off than 54% of households in the UK. If you have 2 living together (£3800 a month), they are better off than 80% of households (although that decreases if you add kids). It is not a bad starting wage in general. Are they rich immediately? No. But they're better off than many. Its all the extras that are the bigger problem imo. They shouldn't need to pay their membership, exams and insurance themselves. They should be able to work their hours and leave because staffing levels are adequate. They shouldn't be responsible for as many people on shift as they are.

1. “Junior doctor” covers a wide range of pay grades, it’s disingenuous to post payslips from the absolute bottom of that pay scale whilst talking about responsibilities which are only undertaken by the top of the junior pay scale (specialist registrars etc).

2. Juniors are very very much still in training. They don’t see the inside of a theatre until the end of FY2 and only then are they observing. Even a ST1/2 would only be assisting for small parts of a surgery. Im trying to imagine any of our consultants if I gave them a FY1 or 2 for their theatre assistant 🤦‍♀️

3. Mandatory study leave 27 days a year (9 days per rotation)

4. Self development time - 2hrs a week (blocked together into 1 day off every 4 weeks). Literally for portfolio work, to be completed at home if they like

5. Exception reporting of anything over 15 mins end of their shift. Time given back in lieu to be taken within 2 weeks or paid in there salary (their choice). Fine paid to the doctors meds by the service the doctor was working for

I’d have more sympathy for them if they weren’t massively misrepresenting the situation

Bivarb · Today 18:38
I'd say that's a decent wage for a trainee. You will be earning mega bucks soon.

Having said that, your conditions are terrible and would warrant changing. Working too many hours without enough support. I totally get that you are exhausted and burnt out

Perhaps as trainees only worthy of barely-above-cleaner pay, they are not really up to being left alone over night in A&E, responsible for saving people’s lives in completely unreasonable conditions.

And during all the student years the student loans’ interest alone is megabucks creating even more compound interest to be owed.

I work for the NHS in a hospital pharmacy and I support you 100% (even if it does mean we have the consultants prescribing and writing TTAs this week ahhhh!!!)

1000% support you and your colleagues ❤

I dont know what job you do , but you would make an excellent Sun journalist!

I am just not an ignorant sycophant!
What did the NHS do that was so wonderful during covid? You google how many hospital based doctors and nurses there are , and then at the average number of inpatients there were during this time. You will see how many doctors and nurses there were per patient, and you will wonder what the fuck these marvellous hardworking dedicated people were doing during this time frame (apart from pissing about on TikTok) . 7 million people waiting for treatment now because of this

But the pay from 2 years ago is relevant, whilst the NHS was spread thin during covid and risking their own lives to treat people and save human lives those selfish bastards in Westminister were breaking the rules THEY imposed and getting pissed and partying at OUR expense on OUR TAXES!! My blood is fucking boiling in anger especially as all those bastards in Westminister do is sit on their lazy arses arguing and point scoring each other like kids on the playground! Meanwhile the country's crumbling around them especially the NHS! The government need to get off their lazy fat arses and stop using our taxes like its their own personal bank account!!!

This is a pretty ridiculous question given that their are many careers someone with a medical degree could earn double in with far less hours/stress @LemonSwan

As I asked to PP but got no answer - you might think this is fine, but your opinion is irrelevant if we continue to hemorrhage doctors to alternative career pathways or to practise abroad because working conditions are so dire.

And during all the student years the student loans’ interest alone is megabucks creating even more compound interest to be owed.

you mean like it is for everybody else. Most STEM professionals need at least a masters which is at least 4 years of university

What did you do during covid? Apart from become bitter and ungrateful?

I agree with this. Most other professionals do not get more than 25 days holiday pa, their pensions are terrible now (new grads) and they don't get as much sick pay as the NHS.

It annoys me hugely when the pension 'perk' is ignored as this is worth a LOT of money and will be when you retire.

No one in the private sector has those kind of pensions now- not if they are starting out as grads in commerce and industry. Pensions in the public sector are extremely generous and jobs are also very secure.

If you include your pension into an annual total income, from your employer, it's far more than what appears on your pay slip.

I'd like to see doctors be paid more but that will only happen if the NHS starts moving into the 21st century and modernisers how it works. Just this week, a friend of mine was sent 2 identical letters for an appt, by snail mail, wasting paper, postage and man power. The NHS doesn't even 'do' email for a lot of things and wastes millions on layers of admin staff as if it was 50 years ago.

I have used private care for years ( thanks to my company scheme) and the difference in efficiency and the better use of IT is staggering.

You need @Juniordoc to be tackling the cause of low pay, not just treating the symptoms.

Proving you have no understanding of AI nor medicine in one fell swoop @nighthawk99

Think you're just trolling for the sake of it now

No. You'd struggle to find professional graduates in graduate jobs earing this little after five years at uni.
DS got a 2.2 having pretty much wasted his time at uni. First job paid him 33k. After one year 44k. Now after two years he's been asked by his manager to apply for a 50k job. I love him dearly, but his main skill set is being a gobshite.
Only the best can be doctors. He (and most of us) are not amongst them.

Ahhh I would argue with you but I see you have been down a YouTube rabbit hole and are more educated than myself on what the nhs did during covid. I unfortunately do not write for the sun which is a shame. Or the daily Mail. I am a mere band 7 nurse who was redeployed back into critical care and I have absolutely no idea what happened in 2020. I mainly sat about drinking tea and playing in tik tok 😵‍💫🤯😂

il stop playing into your hands troll. Enjoy your anger and nhs bashing. Sleep well.

Thanks for your response. That's a very good point. There is talks that the Tory government are quite cunning and playing along with this. Their refusal to sit at the negotiation table with all the elective cancellations going on, they may try and privatise the NHS and blame the strikes for it all, despite the chronic underfunding of the NHS going on for the last decade. The strikes didn't make the NHS not for for purpose, this was the case a long while back. I see your point and it is also something doctors are also aware of but in no way will the strikes be the cause for this to happen. If this starts to happen, the strikes will just be used as a blaming tool by the tories

Hospital consultant here. I fully support you @Juniordoc . I took home ~£1700-1800 as a PRHO in 2001. The situation is unsustainable.

OP, totally behind you. Doctors' salaries are a disgrace even before you consider working conditions. The expression 'junior doctor' covers everything below consultant so most doctors people meet, experienced and qualified experts in their fields, count as 'juniors'. I don't think a lot of people realise this. Relatively few consultant posts and poor funding for training pathways mean many are stuck at that level, but they're the surgeons operating on you when you have cancer or medicating you, or doing the emergency care in A&E. The idea that they're trainees who don't deserve proper pay is ludicrous, especially compared to other professions. The stress on doctors is appalling, and the opinions of some on this thread reveals part of why that is.