To think most NHS GPs are underpaid

[Marue]

Everyone seems to think that gp s all earn 150k. However both of the gp s I know "only" earn about 10k a day that they work and both have been doing the job 6-8 years.

I say only as quite frankly for the amount of training they have, the serious job they have and the consequences if they get something wrong then it doesn't seem like much. I earn a similar amount once my bonus is added in and I don't have an important job at all and has very little responsibility.

Both the gp s I know do just want to quit, one has recently been through a court case by a bereaved family and was cleared of anything. But has taken up so much of her free time and caused her stress to go through the roof.

I'm a paediatric intensive care doctor. I lead resuscitations of tiny babies and teenagers, I look after kids who have just had open heart surgery, I sometimes have to tell parents there's nothing more we can do to save their child, I do helicopter transfers of ventilated babies.

Sounds stressful? It's NOTHING to the stress I felt when i did a 4 month GP attachment. Knowing that the next patient to come in could be a 2 day old or a 102 year old, a diabetic who is going to collapse as she walks into the room, a menoapusal woman with vaginal dryness coming back for the 4th time as everything I've tried hasn't helped, an alcoholic who is going to get aggressive with me as I won't prescribe diazepam, a toddler with symptoms that may be early meningitis or may be just a cold, a young woman having flashbacks about previous sexual assault who is suicidal.... then house calls, where I have to find the house, fight past their dogs, examine a patient in their own bed in a dark room, make the decision if they need hospital admission and then battle with the hospital switchboard and the admissions clerk to even be able to speak to a hospital doctor, who then says I can't admit under x speciality, it needs to be under y, so they'll just pop me back onto switchboard to start all over again!

Bloody hell, I'm stressed just thinking about it! GPs could earn 10 times what they do and I'd still not even consider it!

There is a lot of stress in a lot of jobs and people make career decisions accordingly. In fact some people are stressed deciding whether to wear slippers or shoes and others run huge corporations or do surgery or sell businesses and have little stress. Some people are just better than others at coping with stress.

I would imagine it would be more satisfying to own your GP practice than work part time as a PAYE slave doctor in a practice belonging to someone else however.

I've just checked the NHS website. They say that many GPS are self-employed (so their pay varies, but from what I hear tends to be over £100K per year). For salaried doctors (so more junior): Salaried GPs have a salary range between £55,412 and £83,617.

So even the lowest rank of GPs are paid 2 to 3 times the median UK wage.

In my experience the pay can vary wildly anyway. I don't think 10k a day is great when it only amounts to 30k per year but that is only for three days.
Ive seen GPs in the same practice on completely different pay but i think what you demand comes with what you are actually prepared to do. I know one who got quite a bit more but she always ended up with the late night clinics on top and it was a huge practice in a really rough area so always jam packed with patients that were never the most compliant. They could be quite abusive and because it was such a densely populated area it meant more home visits and call outs ect. She deserved a much higher rate of pay than her boss who did one day a week and not a lot of the other stuff.

But then on top of that some were going and doing out of hours clinics at the hospital overnight between shifts at the practice and making more money doing one session at OOH than they did at that actual practice.

There is a few GPS's who do not need the total salary (net) but the most doctors and essectially the doctor in cityies need a equal wage.

you can look on the internet to learn about the wages and how there remaining. Many peoples have done this and been shocked by the results.

As for doctors complaining about how much we get paid...
We aren't. We get paid a damn good wage compared to many. The reasons we get a good wage include

• the years of training needed to even start earning (so generally we are all in debt to the student loan company before we start)
• the level of responsibility we have (this increases as we gain experience, hence pay increasing)
• the need to pay for additional training courses, exams and so on to enable career progression, as well as fees such as GMC fees, medical indemnity, royal collage membership

We work antisocial hours on top of normal working hours, as such we have a supplement added to our pay to account for this, the size of the supplement depends on how many hours above standard working hours we work and also how antisocial those hours are.

What we are complaining about is a re-structuring of our working week and our contract. This means we face a 30% pay cut. We have rent, mortgages, childcare, bills and so on to pay. The contract also puts a cap on how much we would be paid for working extra shifts on our days off or annual leave, so even if we try to work more hours to make up the shortfall, we won't be paid as much.

We are worried about suddenly taking home almost 1/3 less than we are now, worried we aren't going to be able to cover the mortgage or pay the childminder and so on.

We are also worried about how this is going to affect the NHS. How many of us are going to leave, how many of us are going to make mistakes because we are exhausted as we are working more hours, how many of us are going to decide not to take time out to do research (as we will be financially penalised further for this), how many extra deaths there have already been as people aren't going into hospital when they're sick over a weekend as they fear there are no doctors there and they won't get appropriate care.

We are angry because this whole debacle is being spun to make it sound as if we only care about money, we think we deserve more pay and that we are lazy and don't want to work nights and weekends.

Grazia, it would be far more satisfying to own your own practice but on the other hand you also have to deal with all the financial and managerial aspects (even if you delegate these to your employees you still have ultimate responsibility). The benefit of being a salaried GP is that you just get to be a doctor doing doctoring and don't have any of the rest of it to deal with.

Even the lowest rank of salaried GP's will have done about 5 years as a hospital doctor/GP trainee before they earn the £55k - being a salaried GP doesn't necessarily mean you are less experienced or qualified, just that you don't actually own a share of the practice you work for

I've seen people on here say it's not about the pay but then go on to talk about the pay. Many professionals come out of university with massive debts and we all have living expenses. I'm afraid that doesn't wash. The other points about patient care, dismantling the NHS and high responsibility are the points you need to focus on. Perhaps you'd get more support? It's fine if it is about the pay for you but at least be honest, eh?

I am a public sector worker who signed a contract; Monday to Friday, 9 till 5.30 and we are now being told that we will become a 7 day week 8 till 8 service. Nope, no extra pay either. I freely admit that it would suck in terms of childcare and my lifestyle.

Can we just get rid of the myth that GPs decided to opt out of out of hours work please? What actually happened was that the then government decided that they could do it more cheaply and efficiently than GPs and wrote it out of the GP contract and removed the funding for it.

I think it's safe to say that it has been well and truly proven that HMG CANNOT do it more cheaply and efficiently than GPs, and funnily enough, they now want GPs to take it back - for no more money, even though GP surgeries lost out financially when it was taken off them.

Incidentally, who do you think staffs the GP out of hours Service?

Oh, and I'm not a GP. Neither am I a junior doctor

I am constantly amazed at people's shock at doctor's salaries. They could be paid USA (millions) salaries & I wouldn't bat an eyelid. It is THE only job that involves life and death. Also, the only job that genuinely requires years and years of study.

I don't think comparing GP earnings with "the average wage" and concluding that because GPs earn significantly more than average they must be well paid is meaningful. Doctors train for years, their training is difficult and they are highly skilled: they deserve to earn far more than average because their skill sets are far beyond average, as are their responsibilities. I don't want a doctor who is tired/resentful because she is overworked/underpaid.

I do think that there are some major public health issues in the UK that eat up far too much doctor time, however.

Lots of jobs involve life and death - some nursing specialties, paramedics, fire fighters, police, army

And lots of jobs genuinely require years and years of study - actuary, accountant, lawyer and thats off the top of my head

To the poster talking about a GP aged 24 or 26. That really isn't possible.

Are you sure that she's not a GP trainee? That would be much more plausible

I think the problem is that so many doctors don't understand the stresses of other professions and how insecure/inflexible they are. How people struggle to work on crowded public transport because they don't have an allocated parking space, especially in London and the SE.

My DH is self-employed. He pays indemnity insurance, professional registrations, writes articles, etc to keep up his profile. He funds his own pension. Pays his support staff, finances his premises. He leaves the house at 6.45am and is back by 9.30/10. He is slowing down a bit at 55 and some days he leaves the house at about 9.15 now and is trying (not very well) to come home by 6 on Fridays. I reckon he has reduced to a 50 hour week in the last year. He also has to treat all his clients with absolute respect as do all his staff. If a member of staff was ever rude or short to a client it would be "curtains". Last time I went to the doctor I was shouted at by the receptionist because I was having problems with the self service book in thingy. It was faulty. Why do doctor's staff think they can be so rude? Do you think that's why patient's might not be as respectful as they should. If it takes the patient 35 minutes to get through on the phone do you not appreciate why they get a bit pissed off. Just making the call makes them late for work or takes half a non existent lunch break.

I do sometimes think doctors don't value or respect the time of their patients. Is there ever a reasonable excuse for the first apt being late? More a hospital appointment issue I accept.

It's not actually about my pay at all, I will no longer be a junior doctor when this contract comes in, I'm only in a non consultant grade job at the moment out of choice as I've completed my training and am doing a job in a particular field I want more experience in. I'll be on a consultant salary and it will not affect a penny of my pay.

However, I worry about my junior colleagues as well as my patients. If I disrespect how hard my juniors work, sit back and watch them get shat on, ignore them worrying about how they're going to pay their mortgage or who's going to pick the kids up, well, I'm not that decent a person am I? I can't sit back and say 'it was fine for me, yeah, it's crap for you now but I'm happy here with my nice consultant contract so you guys can suck it up'.

We are NOT asking for extra pay. We are NOT asking for less hours. We just don't want to take home almost 1/3 less pay each month. We don't want to be financially penalised for taking time out to do research. We want people to know that the NHS is already a 24 hour service, that we love and are proud to be part of it and we want to keep it. If it was pulled apart and privatised we would actually end up earning more. We don't want more money, we just don't want to lose what we have.

The 26 year old GP is bullshit.

In any case, supposing that a 26 year old was so gifted that she was at uni by age 16 and could complete a demanding 10 year training programme in record time. Don't you think she might get better offers in the private sector? I work in industry and we pay good money to doctors (PhDs) with a few years work experience - and they still keep buggering off to the City where they can earn 2-3 times as much.

For their levels of experience and responsibility, salaried GPs are certainly not overpaid.

BeaufortBelle - of course there are reasons for first appointments in hospitals being late. Like multi disciplinary team meetings overrunning because of so many patients being admitted. Hospitals by their very nature are highly unpredictable places.

The youngest most people can be a qualified GP is 28 assuming they went straight to university to do medicine at 18. I guess some might consider themselves a GP during their 3 year training which starts for many at around 25? Obviously some bright people go to university early , like Ruth Lawrence but not many!

I have IL who are GPs(6 at last count). Their basic is £100 and they have lots of extras. But they are not salaried and have to pay for lots out of that eg premises, staff, insurance, like any other self employed person. But there are lots of opportunities to earn extra eg expert witness in court, insurance work etc. They are not poor. But I know others who work in inner city London who are scraping around to get a mortgage.

I think starting basic is around £55 so yes that equates to approximately £10,000 annually for each weekday you work so on a 3 day week you'd get around £30k. I know lots of younger doctors who are part time and do locum work to make up extra.

Yes I am Toughasoldboots

I think GPs are mostly saints. So many patients have "lifestyle" diseases and it must be so frustrating not to be able to address those causes.

beaufort first appointments are often late in hospital because the doctors would have been doing a ward round before the clinic starts. So they would have been on the ward from about 7.30 am. Almost all my Consulants use to do this, it's the only time they can fit it in. They truly aren't swanning into hospital at 9.30am. On paper their work day starts at 9.

I remember sitting in on a meeting with GPs talking about HMG wanting to remove OOH responsibility from GPs, I think each individual GP stood to lose several thousand pounds by giving up OOH. Half the room went "we would be crazy to not accept their offer, I can't believe they think it costs so little!" And the other half went "no we musn't relinquish responsibility because the government would f**k OOH up". They were all right.

At 26 a doctor would still be in training and I have no idea how they could be earning £98k. Nurses do a very difficult job but their training is very different from doctors. But maybe itsmine is right though and we could stop all the anatomy, physiology, biochemistry pathology etc that is learned as a medical undergraduate.We could get rid of the minimum of 5 years postgraduate training and experience. She has worked with Gps after all and knows what their job entails. The people who organise all that training to ensure the health service is as safe as possible dont know what they are talking about

Some really good posts here, now I have close friends that are GPS I have a great deal of respect for them.

I posted this not to say they want more money, but they need the workload reduced as they are both not going to last much longer. Gp s seem to be leaving in droves or taking early retirement with all the changes made. People I know are doing ,8am to 9-10pm every day.