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

Missing the point here but have you claimed tax relief on your expenses?

@nighthawk99 you ask what the NHS did during COVID ?

Really you don't remember ? Are you really that fucking stupid ?? 🤯

I completely disagree with that @Somanycats Your son is an outlier- wonder what he does? Is his job secure?

For a start you need to look at drs' salaries when they have been working for 5 years. THEN you need to add on their pensions. Have you looked at that?
Does your son have a gold plated pension with his employer paying in thousands a year?

I know many grads who are just breaking the £40K mark, now 10 years out of uni.

Your son is an exception.

I support you @Juniordoc however I think 35% is unrealistic and will not increase public support.

As am aside I think the term “junior doctor” is a misnomer. It gives the impression that you are not qualified. Yes, you’re still training and still have LOADS to learn but in a profession such as medicine, I’d expect you to be training and learning throughout your career.

Newly qualified teachers are now known as ECT “ early career teachers” I think ECD for “Early career Doctor” sounds much nicer.

The point , I am making is that other careers , particularly in IT are increasingly dwarfing the importance of doctors, and doctors are spitting the dummy

What does this even mean @nighthawk99 ?

Working in IT (not entirely sure what you're specifically referring to) is an entirely different career path to being a doctor.

Someone with IT training is obviously essential for lots of things, but would be useless if you wanted them to diagnose a brain tumour, design a chemotherapy schedule or carry out surgery to remove it.

Based on this and your other posts I think you must be trolling for the sake of it.

Fully support pay restoration @Juniordoc

I think the starting traineeship salary is not great especially in London - however, the question is how much are you on at 30 and then at 40 and who do you compare yourself to. If it's a teacher then you are clearly being paid a lot more, if it's fellow city professionals who got equally good grades at A'level and are just as smart as you then peanuts.

For all that the BMA has refused to timetable their strikes alongside the other public sector workers because they want to keep themselves and public sympathy separate the reality is that from the point of view of the government - medics are public sector workers same as everyone else. Yes, it's crap and yes it's unfair but by 30 and 40 - an average medic will still earn more than say an academic who also has years of training, more than a teacher, policeman etc.

I'm also a junior doctor. It's shit. I'm thinking about leaving, but don't know how. Going abroad isn't an option due to family.

What a lot of the public don't realise is that underpaying and poor conditions means less staff, and worse care with longer waits.

I support you 100%

@BelleMarionette i think the public do get that medic will leave or just wont go into it - but thats true for teachers, policemen, nurses, academics etc etc etc. It's true for all public sector workers.

My son is earning that in his first job after his three year degree. It's an insult really. Much worse for those living in the south east or other really expensive parts of the country, though. I do think medical and nursing staff's pay should have an element that takes into account average local wages (and therefore local cost of living).

They're not dwarfing the importance of doctors, doctors are one of the most valuable jobs to society, but yes the salaries, working conditions, opportunities, work/life balance and chance of progression in the IT sector are dwarfing any professional in the NHS (and more broadly the public sector in henrfal). It's no reflection of the value or the importance. Even tech such as AI can only work with information, research and data input by humans, it will never replace doctors.

I support you 100%. I would say go to Australia as soon as you can and leave this shit show behind. Some of the views on here are just disgusting. No doubt you will still be faced with similar ignorant idiots overseas but at least you will be paid well for it.

From reading (some of) this thread I would argue accountants and solicitors don’t earn as much as people think either. In London maybe but in the north I earn less than the 3rd year doctor salary nearly 20 years post graduation.

That said I do support the strikes because the conditions sound unsustainable. They are in my profession too but at least it’s only money not lives I’m managing with no sleep.

@Juniordoc Thank you for your thoughtful response to my post. I, too, wonder if that is what the government is aiming for - blame the strikes. However, I think you're making a mistake saying "it's the Tories". I think that's a lazy argument. I don't have any particular political affiliation (more a case of voting whichever way seems most sensible at the time, based on a whole host of issues which concern me), but I don't honestly think "the Tories" are the problem. I think the problem is that the NHS has become a Behemoth. No matter how much money any party pours into it, it's never going to be enough. If you look at something incredibly basic such as the fact that wards are heated to insanity and then all the windows have to be open all the time because the patients are roasting, you see waste. The NHS made sense when it was founded; it doesn't now. That doesn't bother me unduly, as I'm not a slavish devotee of the NHS religion - but if you as a doctor are a 'believer', how can you do something that will very likely slaughter the sacred cow?

I hate that it has come to this, but I support the strikes.

That’s terrible. I get paid more than that as a band 6 paid to sit at home working in Project Management. No unsociable hours and, quite frankly, if my job doesn’t get done the deadline just gets pushed back. You can’t do that if someone needs CPR or something.

@Orchidflower1 interesting comparison with ECTs. You're right about the nomenclature I think, but thinking further about that comparison...

An ECT on M1 (lowest pay scale) would get £34,501 in a central London school. They also get mentoring and a reduced timetable. And they're only considered ECTs for two years. I don't think teacher pay is great either, but they don't do night shifts in school.

You can be a 'junior' doctor for many more years than that, perhaps forever if you don't get a consultant post (which is roughly equivalent to being a Headteacher). Imagine if all teachers not heads were called junior teachers... it would really change perspectives.

Our cousin is a Doctor and we fully support her.I think its appalling what the Govt are trying to do ,and to not want to even meet for talks.74% of the public support you according to a poll on ITV this morning .

I support the junior doctors 100%. How we live in a country that thinks that wage is good enough for people who work hard to care for the sick and dying, it’s just beyond me. Good luck to all of you, I hope you get a pay agreement that reflects your skills and vocation

@50percentunidad why exactly do you not support strikes?

Totally behind the NHS staff and happily agree for an extra 2% tax on everyone's pay to fund it.

Is that -£1500 pcm pension contribution on top of salary? That seems huge if it is. Maybe I’m misreading it.

What doesn’t make sense to me is I am personally aware of several very bright kids desperate to study medicine but it is so competitive they didn’t get a place. Now trying via a different route (biomedical science etc). So what is going on there? Seems to be a massive disconnect between A Level students wanting to study med and junior doctors hating the conditions when they come out the other end.

Anyway I hope a settlement is reached that improves the conditions for doctors. 35% is nuts though. I also think teachers are grossly underpaid and they don’t even have the earning potential that medics do…It’s all so bleak right now.

Doctors are underpaid, from F1 right up to consultants. Like for like, doctors can earn 2-3 times as much overseas.

Teachers and nurses are also underpaid and worth much much more. It’s not about putting public sector workers against each other.

It’s about this government wasting money. Giving contracts to unqualified firms. Spending billions housing young male illegal immigrants. There’s plenty of money to give the deserved pay rises. But it’s being misspent.

But the Tories have caused huge issues for the NHS and are absolutely to blame for a large proportion of it. They have known about the pending shifting demographics since they came into power, an elderly population living longer and with more ailments- yet they've systemically cut social care amongst other things as well as not addressing and planning for this change in the NHS itself. The cut backs to support for addiction, dental care, social care and other things impact health greatly and put additional strain on. Yes there are a lot of other issues with the system itself but they aren't doing anything to address those either. Its systemic cuts across the board to public services that have led here; that's very much on their doorstep.

I see several people have mentioned the large employer contributions to the pension.

These are completely irrelevant to pay discussions - the NHS pension does not work in the same way as a 'normal' pension.

Employer contributions supposedly 'for' the OP do not go into the OP's pension pot, and it would not be possible to cut them to 5% as someone suggested. They go to pay current pensions and are set at the level needed to pay that bill.

If the pension were changed today to a private-sector-style defined contribution pension with no employer payment at all, the NHS would still be paying their large 'employer pension contributions' for decades.