to think that doctors shouldn't go on strike over pension changes

[starwarrior]

Why shouldn't they just suck it up like the rest of us?

To those working out pay rates per hour by factoring in the extensions to shifts and on-call hours etc.

Do you not realise that pretty much all professionals/ middle managers and above work in excess of their contracted hours ? We could all do the sums to come up with a pitifully poor hourly rate of pay, even solicitors !.

Whatever happened to mediciine being a vocation ? It seems you all went it for the pay and pension judging by your arguments on here.

so Grrr if you want a vocation in life you forgo any compensation to accommodate the years of learning, training etc?

It is a vocation, hence doctors are not striking on 21st June, but withholding non emergency care.

However, vocation or not, I still need to pay my mortgage, child care, utility bills, etc. I am well paid (already said that in this thread last night) but it took me almost twenty years to get to that situation. At consultant level, any on call commitment is paid as an added percentage of salary, so I get an extra 5% to provide cover on a one in four (night or day) basis.

I am not saying others don't have it worse - you only have to read some of the threads in her- but two wrongs do not make a right.

Novack - More than half voted. Everyone could have voted if they felt strongly enough either way. People who did were overwhelmingly in support of action, which I'm pretty surprised by and I suppose indicates how strongly people feel.

If you feel that way though, maybe we should talk about how much of a mandate the current government have given the level of voting in the general election - 65% turnout, with 36% voting Conservative.

I think we need to separate general T & Cs from pension entitlement.

The training for a doctor is long, hard and expensive. Many work long hours and most of them are extremely dedicated and perform at and beyond the call of duty. They deserve to be well paid - £50-100k is extremely reasonable for what they do.

However, I don't think public sector pensions should be better than private pensions. An individual's pension should be based on a commercial rate ie what would they be able to buy with their pension pot (the pension pot which they have individually contributed to not a general pot that strangers and colleagues have paid into).

I know a number of former police officers who have retired in their late 40s on final pensions that most people - including relatively high earners - could only dream of.

Having said that, I support the right to strike and the doctors are doing it in a responsible way which puts patients' needs first.

"There simply isn't the money to support the level of pensions being received by public sector retirees"

Grrr - the NHS pension scheme makes a surplus, and pays £2 billion per year into the treasury. What reason do the government have for changing it. It obviously isnt that there isnt enough money to support the pensions scheme.

Many vocational type roles are poorly paid. Medicine just happens to be one that isn't due to the level of education and skill/responsibility involved.

What people are saying is that it's not fair, Drs signed up for x,y and z financial benefits. I'm pointing out that as a vocation it's unlikely that new entrants to the profession will be put off unless they're only considering it for the money/status.

We all have mortgages. childcare, utility bills spiralling upwards etc etc. Public sector workers uttered not one squeak of support when private sector pensions were raided 15 years ago and the value of pensions was reduced and we all have to suck it up and cut our cloth. We simply can't afford the same level of lifestyle in this country as we have been used to and it hurts but if we want economic stability for our children we need to take the unpalatable medicine at this point in time and adjust our retirement expectations accordingly. Horrible isn't it.

I hate that word vocation.
It's used far too frequently to explain expectations of how much and how far someone should go in their job without being paid for it. How much shit they should put up with because 'It's not a job, it's a vocation'

As I understand it Doctors still get a very generous final salary pension settlement. As do other senior public servants. No one else does in the private sector, even if they too have spent as much time/money getting their various professional qualifications (BSc/MSc/PhD etc) unless they get onto company boards or are investment bankers.

I suppose the game is to scare the government into backing down, but if they feel they have public support you weaken your hand considerably. I think doctors have lost touch with how grim the whole pension thing is outside the wellpaid bit of the public sector, IMO you will get virtually no sympathy from the public once they see how featherbedded it all is.

Then what do you think will happen? I don't think this has been thought through at all.

Once again, whatever you think of the pension arrangements, this is a scheme that makes a suplus anyway.

Public sector pensions have always been seen as being good, which is a reason why people have opted to work within the public sector rather than private.
I work in an area where it would be very easy for me to work (for a significantly higher salary) in the private sector. Pension is a big reason why my colleagues stay in the NHS. If the government remove that as a factor I think more people might leave, but then it is possible that a shift from people working in the public sector to private is exactly what the government want anyway

The pension was golden handcuffs for those paid less money to work in the public sector than the private sector - however there's more recently been an argument that to attract the best people away from the private sector the salaries need to be attractive.
So basically they want it both ways and the tax payers to put up and shut up.

This is an attack on the NHS.

Traditionally, doctors and nurses have worked for less pay, and in worse conditions, in the NHS than in the private sector, knowing that they would get a decent pension at the end of their career. There has always been a lot of idealism and good will, and going beyond the measure of duty. Also, working very long hours, (1 night in 3 on call, coming into work early, staying late, worrying about patients in the middle of the night, thinking through difficult cases in any spare moment etc.) there was a culture of being freed up to focus on the job in hand rather than on getting the best deal.

The pension arrangements have been a bedrock for the NHS in retaining the best and most experienced staff, even at below market rates.

It is galling, 20 years in, to have these huge changes to the game plan (yes, disclaimer, I am a dr). The risk is that highly trained and skilful professionals will find it easy to transfer to private hospitals where they can do similar work but get paid a much higher wage "upfront". In many specialities, there are still problems getting enough drs to work in the NHS in particular areas. If drs move away from the NHS and there are more vacancies then services will become more pressured and remaining jobs will appeal less.

Slashing pensions is a wonderful way for the Con-servatives to undermine the NHS in competition with private medicine while letting the blame for problems appear to lie elsewhere. (No, I don't vote conservative).

'they want it both ways' You arent born with a mark on your head that says 'private' or 'public' People can move between the different sectors if they wish, but I think that public sector pensions have always put people off moving to the private sector, even for a higher salary, because of the pension. If the government reduce or remove that benefit then people may make different choices.

WTF is this shit about vocation? I work in a vocation type industry. I still have bills, mortgages and childcare to pay.

Why should being in a vocation make you have different needs than someone else. I would say that the majority of peole who work in a vocation have a strong sense of public justice, which is hy they are being shafted by the government

But I hate that DM insisdious whining holier than thou attitude to vocations

ToothbrushThief

If the pension scheme was unsustainable I would probably not support the GPs. however it is self sustaining through their own payments so it's a tax to prop up other areas of society.

I thought that was the whole point of socialism? From each according to his ability and all that? And is it really self-sustaining? Who's seen the figures? If it is self-sustaining now, will it be in 30 years' time?

Why does everyone focus their wrath on public sector gold plated pensions (remember the stat quoted earlier -£4500 is average pension for women) when politicians are seemingly sat on a pedestal claiming expenses and setting their own wages/pensions etc?

The reason everyone focuses their wrath is twofold. Firstly, public sector workers are not contributing enough to pay for those pensions. They're retiring too early. So the private sector workers are subsidising the pensions of the public sector workers. Secondly, the pension was supposed to be a way to make up the difference in earnings between private and public sector. However average public sector earnings have been higher than the private sector for at least 5 years. So now lower-paid private-sector workers are subsidising their better-paid private sector workers.

The £4,500 figure is irrelevant. It's a union smokescreen. It's not the amount that matters, it's the ability of the state to sustain those payments, however large or small, over the (possibly) 30-year retirement of the worker.

Not a Dr btw

I was chatting the other day to one who said people resent him earning a good wage. He's done the course, training, hours and has really highly developed skills and people think he should do it as a vocation.... They don't feel the same about lawyers?

Yes they do. Lawyers are nearly as despised as politicians. Doctors aren't despised. They are, however, very highly paid and the sight of very wealthy people demanding more taxpayers' money is - unedifying.

flatpackhamster

They arent demanding more taxpayers money. The scheme is in surplus. The government are asking NHS workers to pay more, have lower pension and later retiral.

hiveofbees

flatpackhamster

They arent demanding more taxpayers money. The scheme is in surplus.

Who's got the figures to confirm this? I keep reading this but nobody's shown me the numbers. Will it be in surplus in perpetuity?

The government are asking NHS workers to pay more, have lower pension and later retiral.

Yes, they are, and they should. Retirement at 60/65 arose when life expectancy was around 70. Now life expectancy is nearly 90. It's fantasy economics to pretend that's sustainable.

You know very well the point I am making, hiveofbees you either have the security and conditions that the private sector can only dream of, wrongly I might add but that's the way it is or you can have the salaries that compete with the private sector.

It's not just because HPs have a vocation.

It is
-doing a difficult job
-requiring skills which have demanded training over many years
-for which there is a substantial demand in the private sector, with an alternative of working there and being paid more highly.

There are a large number of newly qualified medical graduates - med school places have increased in recent years. Also, the time taken for postgrad training has been cut. However, would you really want an exodus from the NHS of more experienced staff, to be replaced by staff with a much diminshed breadth of experience and training?

Its funny isnt it - how all these public sector schemes are 'in surplus', yet still cost the taxpayer billions.

I dont know if it would be in surlpus for ever. There must be all kinds of variables that would effect that. Who knows what will happen in 20, 60, 100 years? Of course the way that David Cameron is behaving there probably wont be an NHS in the next 10 years...

Also...it is the public workers who make the difference between a cvilised and uncivilised country.

We doctor, nurse, teach, care, bring babies into the world,deal with birth deaths and marriages,, police, firefight, clean streets etcetc. All the basic infrastructure items that cover all the important life events.

How would the country operate without them? Why should we be shafted? It is our JOB to look after the public. A bit of appreciation would be nice tbh.

If we weren't there who would educate YOUR children? Respond to YOUR medical problems?