AIBU unreasonable to say everyone should know about the junior doctor's contract the government is trying to impose?

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The government is seeking to impose a new contract on junior doctors. By junior doctors I mean all those in training I.e. Not consultants and GPs. Starting salary for these doctors is £22636 plus a supplement for additional & antisocial hours worked.
The contract seeks to re-classify normal working hours so that 9am on a Tuesday will be the same as 9pm on a Saturday night (so normal hours Include up to 10pm 6 days a week). This will lead to a pay cut of 10-30% for all junior doctors depending on which specialty they work in. They also propose to remove certain safeguards over lack of breaks & working over contracted hours.
They also propose to entirely scrap a pay supplement for junior doctors training to be GPs. This was designed to make pay equivalent to that of a doctor in hospital training who receives the pay banding I mentioned above. There is already a recruitment crisis in general practice. One in ten posts in England are unfilled in a recent survey. Many training posts are unfilled too.
You might think this doesn't matter to you but we are all patients sometimes. I know people who won't be able to afford their mortgage if the contract is imposed and they plan to emigrate. What will happen to the NHS then?

career
You have to make a series of atrocious mistakes to lose your license. Look through the GMC investigations notes. Even appalling mistakes quite often result in a short period of suspension with supervised return to work. Many GPs simply don't act as if they have lives in their hands. I've spoken to consultants who agree and despair of receiving referrals in a timely fashion because GPs don't refer on quickly enough. But as far as I'm aware, nothing will happen to the doctor who doesn't think bowel cancer quickly enough, or whatever, perhaps because the patient was usually subjected to six appointments with six different GPs so there is no one doctor to hold accountable. Now I think of it, doctors seem to see red if it's suggested that they should be able to do their job well because apparently it's all the government's fault that they can't. Where as if an academic isn't at the top of their game, they risk not working again in the very near future and that is the end of their career. Barring an enormous failure, doctors don't have that pressure. And one has to publish SO much, teach SO much, with no locum to burn the midnight oil.

I don't know anyone who works in A and E, it's true. But why are GPs complaining about the hours when they never seem to do out of hours work? And then nurses and many other professions work through the night as well. I suppose my point is that no one else makes quite such a song and dance about their job in real life as doctors do.

Feather, junior doctors do have that pressure. If they are seen not to be good doctors when they are a junior, they simply won't get a consultant post and their career ends. Even in departments struggling to recruit consultants they will not appoint someone who isn't competitive. As junior doctors in many specialities they are expected to do fellowships and to publish papers.

Feather and Black I suggest you go to your local hospital at 8pm on a Friday night in December (say the 22nd or 23rd) and shadow the FY1 on for medicine for the next 3 nights (remembering they are on about 25K) and then tell us the stress is just the same as academic life.

I do believe that a considerable amount of the general public would disagree with you there. Most people I know have considerably less sympathy for teachers complaining than junior doctors.

Sorry FY2 I believe FY1 don't do nights so make that 29K.

Hmm ,I am also cross about the pay and conditions for all NHS workers tbf the Drs unions etc are extremely powerful and always stick together as a formidable force .instead of being. Separatist perhaps all NHS workers should stick together and support each other

I am a teacher and fully support the doctors in this. you can't compare life and death and all that physical and mental strain to teaching. look after our doctors so they can look after us!

stillwish I fear we are wasting time trying to reason with featherandblack. Clearly she has her own viewpoint where publishing academic papers is more stressful than repairing half-dead people at 3am and that the only doctors in the whole of the UK work as GPs.

feather I am a doc and dh is a gp .Paid hours are 9-5 but we are seldom home before 7.30 and there is work for teaching /appraisal to be done at home. I often have no lunch and no breaks during the day. Our stress doesnt "trump" others and I certainly wouldnt want to work in academia but telling someone bad news or worrying about making a wrong decision that could impact badly on someones health is very emotionally draining . its not just about being struck off by the GMC , some of us actually feel incredibly upset when things go wrong. And your comment about "depressives"being mundane is quite offensive-I hope you never have the misfortune to personally experience just how devasating an illness depression can be

Still Do you think Christmas isn't a stressful time for most professions? I don't think those three nights would be representative but take your point nonetheless. It's not the life that my GP friends lead, though! And they most definitely do not have to publish!! One of them told me recently that there was no way they could ever go back to studying - having to read books and write papers

I will leave this thread now as I don't have anything informed to add to the OP's discussion and have come to the end of my anecdotal thoughts :)

Feather I read and (occasionally) write academic papers for recreation.

I am obvs a hospital doctor

nod That was my point, actually. I cannot believe how some GPs refer to patients who are quite clearly in a dreadful position mentally. I certainly know what depression is like and have had to bite my tongue. In your position, I would care as much as you do but many doctors don't.

anecdotal thoughts

And that's all they are.

Feather, I don't know how I can phrase this politely but you really are talking drivel!

And I do get so fed up of teachers trying to make it out they have it harder than anyone (and I am a teacher) - it does none of us any favours. I am also married to a doctor and the level of skill needed is, well, pretty mind boggling. It's generally conceded that pay isn't just linked to hours worked but to the level of education and expertise it takes to get to that point.

Really going now, don't say good riddance until I've had a chance to hide the thread.

I thought they were getting rid of the shift allowance for nurses, so they're getting a pay cut too.

DS1 is in the army. He's been on exercise this week and has had 3 hours sleep in 3 days. Both he, and DH who is RAF, have heard the Government is getting rid of increment pay. It's not just the junior doctors who are being shafted.

Haven't read the whole thread, but I'm so glad OP started this post as this whole issue is being swept under the carpet.

These cuts are just horrendous! All the junior doctors I know work in hospitals. They already work extremely unsociable hours (well above 48 hours per week) in extremely stressful circumstances where they have to make split second decisions which may save or end someone's life. Please take a moment to think about how immensely stressful that is. Once all of that is over and they finally get home, they don't sleep because they are so busy going over and over everything that happened that day. Even when they do the right thing, there is a culture of complaints and litigation which follows them around everywhere. In the little "free" time they have, they have to write papers, do all their paperwork (log-books etc) and many have to study for extremely challenging exams. Whether it's 48 hours or 60-90 hours, there are considerable hours put in in excess of this. I think their current salary is entirely reasonable given everything they have to go through, and it is worth noting that out of that salary they have expenses, sometimes in the thousands, for insurances/obligatory memberships/exams/textbooks/compulsory courses/compulsory seminars and presentations. Many are now genuinely concerned about how they will pay their mortgages or afford to have/look after children. How people can argue that these doctors, who may one day work through the night/over Christmas/for 48 hours STRAIGHT to save your life, "deserve" to be paid less is just disgusting.

I think this is a case for many jobs though, nurses included. As carers we often are very poorly paid and don't get unsociable hours bonuses yet we provide so many important things. I used to be a home carer and we didn't get paid for travel time. This meant sometimes working 15 hour shifts and only getting paid for 8 hours. Obviously doctors are very important but they shouldn't be seen as better than anyone else imo.

Typically, doctors are perceived as being extremely well paid (and in fairness so they are but that pay is related as I say to skill.) Medicine always takes the cream of the A level crop, and to even pass you need to effectively get a 2:1 or above (and I have explained that badly I know, but doctors here presumably know what I mean.)

Added to this, we've all encountered an arrogant dismissive doctor and as a result public sympathies won't lie with them. Easy pickings. Unlike nurses, who are seen as the angels of hospitals.

Yes, it's high pay. But don't kid yourselves - with a minimum of a couple of As and Bs at A level with enough determination to apply to medicine in the first place and ability to get a science based subject from a RG university - medical students would typically be getting a highly paid job anyway. We aren't doing them a favour by employing them and paying them; it's the other way round.

You just can't compare like to like with medicine. I'm sure that's why so many doctors end up marrying other healthcare professionals - that and the fact they rarely meet anyone outside their workplace!

DH used to insist that many of his contemporaries had a coke habit to keep them awake. I'm sure he was winding me up I hope

And that's wrong Fratelli but did you have to study for years to be a home carer? Did you have to endure thousands in debt? Did you need a couple of As in Chemistry and Maths and the like, and volunteer on top?

I've dabbled in home care as well and I completely agree that the way carers are treated is abysmal - but that doesn't excuse this proposal.

'Oh well, my kid had his nose punched so you can't complain yours got poked.'

No. Doesn't work!

I'm married to a GP. He gets paid £40k for working 9-5 mon to fri. In reality, he leaves at 7 and is home by 8 pm. He pays fees to the RCGP, GMC, BMA plus his indemity insurance. This costs over £10K a year. He comes home and then has to work on practice costings, finish notes, NHS quotas etc...

He trained for 6 years at uni, plus a further 8 years in the NHS. He also does out of hours at the local hospital some Saturday's to fulfil his revalidation. It is unrealistic to maintain this workload and so he too resigned from General Practice three months ago and we are in the process of emigrating. The practice is likely to fold and building sold as no Gps have submitted a new tender. It is frightening.

You can't compare junior doctor hours with GP hours ffs.
feather, I dont think teacher have it easy. I'm married to one.
However, how many junior teacher are out there in the middle of the night having to make life and death decisions without the having already worked at least 12 hours without a break?
And it's relentless. If they're lucky they may get a weekend off between rotations and their pay and holiday provision is about as bad as that of nurses.