Is there sympathy for consultants striking?

[LadyTemperance]

Just as the thread title says, do you feel sympathy for the consultant doctors pay demands. I understand their pay has not gone up for many years meaning they have had a cut in real terms. That being said a quick google tells me they start on 88k and have regular pay rises not based on performance.
They are hardly on the bread line are they?

The extra they're asking for is more than an average persons entire salary. This will be paid for by the tax of those of us working 50 hour weeks on minimum wage I presume.

I don’t know anyone who hasn’t had a “pay cut in real terms” - most organisations are not handing pay rises of 10%+ simply because inflation is high. If you’re a high earner, you suck it up.

I used to work as a med sec at the MRI in the 90s. NHS. The consultant I worked for also had private patients in another wing. NHS was soviet style - private had carpet! He was a profiteering wanker doing his bare minimum NHS whilst coining it in. SR couldn't wait be become consultants to do the same and saw it as deferred gratification. Has it changed?

Is that only civil service or also bankers, CEO and all the shareholders currently benefitting from a 1000% increase in profits (which are driving inflation btw)?

Or does it applies to MPs too? Because they earning a lot from their job despite not turning up to votes, receiving a long lost if privileges and STILL got massive pay rises in the last 10 years….

I agree.
Supply and demand.

It's such an easy cushioned life I don't know why all the objectors don't just become consultants themselves? That would bring the cost right down and everyone would be happy!

Exactly. If highly qualified staff are not getting what they want, they will leave. They are leaving. If we want excellent people in the NHS we have to pay them and give them decent conditions. No one at consultant level is without many many options.

@MagicBullet i don’t personally know any MPs so you move on loftier circles than I do. Lots of people in public sector as well as financial services, retail and hospitality. None of them getting inflationary increases.

No. If you are a consultant, you have the option to tell the powers that be to shove the job up their arse and leave for a better job. Leaving the NHS with no consultants

It is precisely your attitude of entitlement and god like superiority complex that lends itself to a five day walk out to further line your pockets at the expense of millions of patients and tax payers!!

Dont you dare talk to me about ‘caring’ for people when you choose to walk out demanding more and more money at the expense of those already working and struggling at the food banks and facing homelessness. How bloody dare you.

@GCalltheway Are you a troll? Like it or not, you need doctors. Whatever your feelings are, you can’t do without them. Whatever your feelings are on the strike, it doesn’t really matter does it?

Excuse me, I'm not a consultant 😂.

The problem @HermioneWeasley is that the statistics don’t actually support what you are saying. Consultants in the NHS have been disproportionately affected by pay erosion over the last 15years.

See this graph from the Financial Times. Not known for being overtly sympathetic to strike action!

You completely failed to see FixTheBone's original message, and then took her incredibly sarcastic response to your post as straight. Go look up thread and actually read the posts by actual consultants and nurses, rather than "learning" "facts" from the right wing press.

And isn’t it enlightening to hear the ‘poor’ consultants woes as they sit in their new Mercedes fresh from a weekend at the family holiday home, demanding that their pay keeps up with inflation whilst everyone else suffers and pays the price.

You have spent far, far too long in your echo chamber of privilege and elitism quite frankly. Perhaps step outside of your air conditioned life style and take a good long look at the real world.

Well we can choose not to pay them what the rate is in Canada/NZ/Aus and watch them walk. Infrastructure and working hours are probably a bit better too.

Or we can recognise that the whole country benefits from a healthy workforce with access to good public services and pay to retain experienced staff (and to recruit).

Just as I thought. Jealousy is at the root of your vitriol. Troll off somewhere else. It's not a race to the bottom you know.

But doesn't that argument also apply to nurses - who are leaving in droves and can get better pay in Canada/NZ/Aus but cannot afford or bring themselves to strike for what they deserve.

To those that have, more shall be given....

In the real world ie everywhere else in the developed world doctors are appropriately paid for their skills and experience. Perhaps it's time you opened your eyes.

Classic!!

So we don’t agree with your Maffia style ransom and now I am suddenly called a troll. I think not my friend, you have already lost the argument when you resort to that nonsense.

If you are so desperately hard done by and living on the bones of your newly eroded arse why would anyone be jealous exactly?????

Well yes of course we should be paying all our medical - and social care - staff appropriately and competitively to retain and recruit.
We don't have to pit unions against each other - unless of course that's exactly what you want to achieve.

Or @GCalltheway cone and join us?

do the zillion hour weeks commuting 2hrs each way while struggling to study for professional exams, spent 1:3 weekends in the hospital, do a week of nights (split up) every 7 weeks,

get more and more senior and discover that the responsibility is ramping up but actually your lifestyle isn’t. And that what your older colleagues have (big houses and holiday homes) you can’t have. See a ridiculous tax that was designed for definites contribution schemes but applied to your defined benefit one decimate your senior colleagues as they could no longer justify staying in work. Work harder to compensate.

completely sacrifice your life for a pandemic. Be afraid you were going to die, be afraid you would bring it home and your loved ones would die. Be only rewarded by claps. And now a country saying you aren’t worth a salary commensurate with what other countries will pay.

Then see the job offers for Aus and Canada at double and triple your UK salary. Then consider if staying in the UK is worth it.

then decide to vote to strike to try to save the NHS because if you can’t get traction on this issue the future for UK healthcare is poor.

(or go on believing we are all super comfortable leading luxury lifestyles.)

Yes, totally support them.
I want the best surgeon, the best cardiologist, the best orthopod or whatever discipline I may require, to be treating me or my family.
I don't think we should be sitting back and watching the brightest talents leave for a better paid posts outside the UK.
Just because some people may feel that their pay is reasonable compared to their own or other lower earnings is not the yard stick they think it is.
Consultants work incredibly hard and have responsibilities that far outreach a £88k salary.
It's comparing apples to oranges.