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?

Well I guess the government will have to recruit overseas to cover the petulant deficit.

Fortunately are not the only country in the world that produces doctors, so I guess we might well look to find new options with hopefully less aggressive ransom tactics to extract huge sums from the public I guess…

Stick to the facts. 1 - Just because they don't have your support doesn't mean that they don't have public support. It is evident on this thread for a start. People are generally smart enough to know that they really need people who can save their lives and the lives of their loved ones and most people put a very high price tag on that. 2- They can work elsewhere. They will be paid much more overseas. It is affordable elsewhere. That is the market rate. They can leave and work where they are valued. 3- You are right, how they behave is a matter for them, not your value judgements. The question is do we pay the market rate for medics or do we go without them. You choose.

Good article setting out historic issues and increasing demand worldwide for medics - we are competing against other countries to entice staff here (NHS has always been reliant on overseas trained medical staff) and to retain the staff we have.
There is a worldwide shortage and its a mistake to believe that we are offering the best terms - we aren't as this article sets out.
Of course we can just shout No! and pretend its not happening.

https://news.sky.com/story/nhs-crisis-why-are-so-many-staff-leaving-the-health-service-12812473

Going private is incredibly difficult to do, especially to break into. The insurance costs alone can be prohibitive. And most doctors don’t want to go private - they believe in affordable/ free healthcare for all. Emigrating is not easy either - my partner is a consultant oncologist and he wants us to move abroad which we are actively exploring but as a result my career will suffer and we will leave our parents at a time we’re looking to start a family. It is a huge tension point for us. But he so drained and exhausted working in the NHS - he has to see 3x as many patients in a clinic as 3 years ago. Meanwhile their real life pay has been significantly eroded from when they started out. He has 6 v close doctor consultant friends - 4 others are in the process of moving abroad, other 2 don’t want to leave family so have switched to locum work (better pay, but no job security) to make it more do-able. No doctor I know would encourage a young person to go into medicine. And more worrying is the impact long term shortages are having on care standards. One recently told me he’d be extremely worried if anyone he knew had to go into a&e for anything seriously. No doctor strikes easily - they are doing it because they and the system have reached breaking point.

Yeah, do people think we aren't already trying to recruit consultants from overseas or something?!

That's what they're doing and they're also leaving. Why would people come to a country that pays less than others and in worse conditions? Many do the min time here and then move on to oz etc.

Aha! But the public support is minimal at best, outwardly hostile. It’s definitely not the fullsome support one might hope or imagine.

Recruitment works two ways.
We can recruit new talent from elsewhere that will be grateful for such a generous opportunity.

The door is that way >>>>

We should never negotiate with terrorists, and that is what you lot sound like these days.

It is quite interesting watching how some people struggle with accepting that their feelings about what constitutes reasonable work conditions for other people don't actually matter when it comes down to whether those people will accept the offered conditions. Reminds me of some of the dafter contributions on the wfh threads.

Well consultants are paid £85K which compare to your average Joe sounds like a lot. But we need to stop comparing consultants with other occupations.

They are highly skilled, academic professionals with a long time in education and training to get where they are.

And compared to other developed countries I think the UK pays consultants some of the lowest. My friend's brother is a gastro consultant in Australia. No nights or weekends. Gets paid £230K.

If we won't pay them, plenty of other countries will because they recognise that to attract talent and value requires competitive salaries.

And what do you think a few billion in extra pay demands is going to do to a system that is already at breaking point exactly ??

Its the equivalent of raiding the local shop as the tsunami arrives, letting the patients drown so to speak.

This is not the case for any consultants I know in their 30s on NHS salaries and none are able to break into private work (even though highly trained, top universities etc). In some practice areas, it’s almost impossible.

@GCalltheway

Overseas? We're trying to do that and they don't want to work here either. They're also fucking off to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Europe...

This is supply and demand.

No. They earn a ton in the NHS and they can earn a lot for private work too.

We already have significant staff shortages. Waiting lists were vast before Covid. We are now competing in a worldwide market.

Sticking our heads in the sands and complaining people wont accept terms and conditions assumes we hold the whip hand. Whilst that might have been true once it simply doesnt hold true now.

For the upteenth time, I am not a medic.

Public support is minimal at best - depends what newspaper you read and I can guess which one you read.

Where are you going to find this miraculous talent from elsewhere? There are other countries far more attractive for overseas doctors and the UK would merely be a springboard for those that do come here for a while. Hardly a solution. Or were you thinking maybe get some plumbers in to replace gynaecologists?

The door is that way - I wonder if you would feel quite the same way if you were needing life-saving surgery and couldn't get it.

Terrorists! Get a flipping grip.

Anyone who says they don’t deserve a pay rise needs to have a good look at their own values. Anyone in any profession is due to have a pay rise in line with inflation. It takes a huge amount of years of learning and training to be experts in their field… this country will literally have no doctors left if there is nothing that makes them want to join the nhs.

Imagine thinking people from other countries would see the NHS as appealing to work in 🤣 reality is we get IMGs as working here then opens a lot of doors in other countries, I never met any who actually wanted to stay and build a career here. There's a global shortage of medics, if you're moving anyway you'd be crazy to not want to earn 3 x as much in nicer conditions.

Yes, this is what it boils down to. It's a supply and demand issue. One can be unsympathetic with people whilst also acknowledging that their services come at a price, and equally one could be totally sympathetic whilst also not paying for them.

If people want to make an argument that we're better off without enough consultants than we are by paying them what's needed to keep them, by all means make that argument. But it's the only one that'll be applicable.

Also agreeing with you @DataNotLore just quoted to reiterate your point.

There will be UK doctors coming through but not from middle class backgrounds because they will choose other professions that they believe remunerates their highly skilled knowledge with very high pay.

Students (now from a much wider range of backgrounds) are still scrabbling over each other to get a place in medical school for a stable and 4-5 times over national average salary with premium pension and great sickness/maternity benefits, arguably 15 years after graduation.

I don't support their strike, they strategically waited for all the other groups to do first because of the optics of much gets more.

Doctors from working class backgrounds can also afford plane tickets and work visas.

Difficult. I think No, because people will die and others suffer as a result of this.

I have worked all over the world, and that is why I am confident that most will remain here when they explore the realities.

Schooling is free here and we have some of the best private schools and universities in the world. This matters.

We have free healthcare and it’s exorbitant in other countries. High premiums and insurance

Relocating is a nightmare - even harder with kids, worse still in countries that are not English speaking.

Dubai is a really horrible place to live. The warm / baking climate wears off quickly and so does the knowledge of how badly others are treated and a general lack of security. It’s tacky as hell and living in a mansion in the equivalent of a prison compound has it’s limits.

Australia is a dessert, it’s not this land of honey and milk but a bland, misogynistic, roasting hot, slightly backward country with challenges of its own.

Every country has its issues. That’s the bottom line - yes you might earn a little more but the sacrifices will be enormous. No one is stopping you.

The only country I would return to is Switzerland, but unless you are fluent you are going to really struggle in a job as a consultant.

The idea that medics can flounce over pay and have a long list of options that are truly appealing and realistic is in reality for the birds. It’s just ego and wishful thinking.

You are spectacularly missing the point. Top ranking A star DC are still choosing Medicine over careers like city law and finance, management consultancy because they want to be doctors. They want to make a difference. They are not just motivated by money. They are smart enough to choose much more lucrative careers and they don't because they only want to be doctors. Because they care. Your post is insulting

But they are in big numbers, this isn't oh I want to leave, its translating to people actually starting jobs abroad.