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

You're confusing qualification and licensure.

An F1/2 doctor is a fully qualified medical doctor who may legally practice medicine.

But an F1 doctor who holds a provisional licence is still a fully qualified doctor who may legally practice medicine BUT under supervision of a consultant.

One they are F2 doctors, they have licence to practice without supervision.

For those who keep asking about the progression and nodal points of pay, please find attached.

As alluded to in a previous post, the ST8 surgical registrar who is classed as 'junior' or 'trainee' (just because that is how the system names them), is operating solo in the middle of the night doing emergency surgeries independently. There is no 'supervision'. 'Trainee doctor' has a completely and entirely different meaning to other occupations. You are operating solo, you are make decisions solo.

As per the image, you can see an ST8 surgeon has a basic nodal point salary of £58,398. That is not even take home. Also bear into account the stress, the effort, the amount of hard work it took and personal finance it took to get there with constant relocation expenses, exams, courses, conferences, membership fees which the employer does not reimburse. An ST8 has an absolute minimum of 10 years experience after graduation. In 90% of cases, ST8 surgeon registrars have easily more than 10 years experience (you're talking probably 13-14 years realistic minimum). This is because progression in the NHS is not straightforward. There are multiple hoops to jump and it's not like you automatically progress year on year. You have to constantly apply for new jobs, change locations. pay for exams, courses, conferences out of pocket to progress. You are often stuck at the same grade for many years at multiple different time points in your career.

The comment about rapid pay progression is hence absolutely farce.

I am here trying to be as openly honest and transparent with the public as I can

Some of the posters in this thread who are bullying the OP and other doctors on here clearly don't understand the scope of the term junior doctor. There's no point explaining it to them. To the OP and other doctors on here, take a rest as there's no point debating the point with some people who are clearly determined to disagree with you all.

I absolutely support all NHS employees, and less you all every day. I am so angry that our government has let it slide into ruin and treated you all with such disrespect and disdain for years and years - Labour and Tory, both are guilty.

Thank you all for soldiering on through all this shit and trying so hard to keep going.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I don’t understand why people think it’s wild junior doctors are asking for a 35% pay increase but they don’t think it’s wild doctors are worth 35% less now compared to 15 years ago, despite doing the same job.

There’s always no money for pay rises in line with inflation, or pay restoration to catch up, regardless of the economy and people have had enough. The government has chosen to systematically devalue the skills of most public sector workers, including doctors, for a long time but it’s like anything else in life - if you don’t pay what’s due you end up with a hefty amount owed.

What's the point talking about pensions? They are struggling now. They need money to live now!

Hi there, I have posted my payslip from F1. I have also just posted the nodal pay points of progression for doctors with the image very recently, please feel free to take a look at my recent post

Tarantullah Thatcher started the deliberate decline of the NHS; back then everyone was well aware that it's end was her ultimate aim. Labour in opposition fought against it, but Blair, well under Blair Thatcher's work continued. It's not just been THESE Tories; it's been their plan for decades. And Labour colluded.

I think it's just the lack of transparency that's the problem. You told us half the story and we'd like to know why you don't want us to know the other half, yet you do want us to support a measure that will lead to patient deaths.

It's not that I don't sympathise. I do. But I just wonder why you chose that pay slip and not an up to date one. Surely the most relevant one would be now since more junior doctors are not in their first year than are.

It seems...manipulative. Is there a financial benefit to your position now that you don't want the public to know about is the question really. I kind of know the answer if you're anything like the other junior doctors I know. You've probably made quite a bit doing locums.

Hi there, I personally do not locum. I do not have the time at all. The full-time job is busy enough and I am so burnt out. For people in full-time jobs in the NHS, I do not think many locum at all.

You are probably thinking about the doctors not in permanent employment and they do ad-hoc locums to make an income but they don't have a full-time contract. Trust me, if you have a full time job, you are fully occupied and working many extra hours for free, there is no time to locum.

The window cleaner is never going to be saving lives, caring for your sick relatives ffs.

And I mean no offence to window cleaners with that comment.

I am not naturally a fan of strike action. But there has to be a cut-off point and I definitely support this one. I also think the argument “you knew what you were getting into”, or words to that effect, are not helpful. Quite frankly, than fuck some people ARE willing to go into careers like these (along with other emergency services, teachers, etc, etc). We’re buggered if no one wants to pursue the training to achieve these careers.

But you're using 'junior doctor' very misleadingly yourself here - the person you replied to specifically said 'newly qualified'. Yes, there are much more experienced people classed as junior doctors - they are also earning much more than the salary from a few months after qualification that you've posted here.

Hi there, I do not think you have seen my recent post on pay progression and nodal points. Feel free to find it under 'OP posts - see all'.

In summary, an ST8 surgeon with an absolute baseline minimum of 10 years experience after graduation (often times many many more years experience) has a basic gross salary of £58,398. They are operating solo in the middle of the night with and making clinical decisions about life and death. Take home significantly less. And again as I have mentioned, the multiple relocation expenses, exam fees, courses, conferences, membership fees which are paid out of pocket and not reimbursed.

Again I reiterate doctors do not make as much as the public think and the pay progression nodal chart is objective evidence of that

I'm sorry but while you may well feel that £58,398 is too little for the responsibility of the work, you're not going to find that the general public considers that to be low paid in and of itself. It is more than 89% of the UK population earns and not acknowledging that makes you look very out of touch (as does constantly pointing out that doctors don't take home their full gross salary - no one does!). The BMA knows that, which is why they're making such a misleading song and dance about the £14 an hour that doctors very briefly earn upon first qualifying.

The conditions of junior doctors absolutely suck. The pay does not. Pretending that it does just loses you sympathy on the very real issues over conditions.

I can assure you the BMA is not lying at all and they have even extremely open and transparent. You are free to have your own opinions and we can disagree cordially. I have also posted my own payslip for transparency. Thanks for looking through my posts!

I didn't say they were lying, I said it was misleading. And telling people that 'junior doctors' earn £14 an hour, while also emphasising that you can be a junior doctor for 10 years, is misleading. Both statements are true but the combination is misleading.

Also, it isn't an opinion that the salary you consider so grossly underpaid for ST8 is between the 89th and 90th centile for UK salaries - it's objective fact.

No, my friends are in the same position as you and they do locum.

I don't think you can speak for the 'general public'. If you or your loved ones have had any medical treatment which I am sure you have, you would have expected them to have had a high standard of medical knowledge, skill and experience and like the doctors on here say, doctors study for very difficult speciality exams ( to achieve this ) whilst working long hours unsupported due to a lack of staff. Mentally, it must be very gruelling. For 10 years post medical school experience, many other countries like the UAE, Canada, New Zealand, Australia would gladly welcome the doctors you don't value and pay them many times over 58K. If you're banking on getting overseas doctors to fill the gap, the processing of their applications to live and work here have been extremely slow and many have gone to Canada and other places after passing their UK PLAB conversion courses. The people you compare to junior doctors haven't signed up to a medical career, so you would be in a pickle if you needed any care yourself. So why not restore their pay to retain them? If not 35%, somewhere in between? Wouldn't you want the government to retain them after training them?

Leave the OP alone. I am not sure it achieves anything. Give it a rest. Your anger shouldn't be directed at one individual.

They need to retain them. Doctors leave med school with 100grand of debt. There's so many people now who could be amazing doctors but too poor to attend university. So they need to protect the doctors they have becaue it's a massive skill but a luxury a lot of people can't afford to do a job that important