to wish doctors weren't going on strike

[MissTriggs]

After 5 months of misdiagnoses, being sent to the wrong person, explaining why suggestions weren't helpful, holding my GP's hand and fighting to get to the right person I'm now booked in to have the test I need on 2nd December, the day after the strike.

If my test was on 1st December I'd be pretty upset

I then read a post on here from a junior doctor claiming s/he could make more money "as a manager at Greggs" and that tipped me over the edge.

I saw lots of posts from doctors saying they already work weekends but it turns out they get paid extra for this at present.

I think doctors have no idea what it is to work in a job where you can be sacked easily, where you don't know whether work is coming in from day to day, where your employers have no interest in getting you back to work after a career break and where you either have no pension or the value of your pension can fall from year to year and be worth nothing.
I also think they don't realise that, whilst a generation ago doctors might have been unusual in working antisocial hours, nowadays all professionals are expected to be available all the time.

I might be wrong, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable here.

I'm not leaving till I've understood it :)

The problem is the government's policy and how that trickles down the NHS.

Like you OP, badly misdiagnosed here. I had to find out what was wrong, which doctors to see and go private in the end. The training, research and general funding is shit. It needs an overhaul.

Anyway, I wish no person a horrible work environment and the JD do get a rough deal, one being over cautious saved my life, I wish them well.

OP, yes, at least for the first 2 years - DH is FY2. In the later years (I think) it changes slightly in relation to how long the blocks are and working in different departments, but the banding system is still in place.

The rota is just the doctors' timetable - from what I understand a lot of departments have a set "pattern" they follow to make it easier administratively, but this may not be the case everywhere.

To answer your earlier query, my understanding is they will not be paid extra for unsociable hours under the new contract - the "rise" is meant to be enough. They may work something out for this.

The pay protection would last 3 years - after that current JDs will drop onto the proposed pay.

Mrs Triggs- Eureka you have got it!

The band 3 payment is compensation for Drs who have been overworked usually through covering 'rota gaps' due to illness or failure to recruit. It functions to deter Employers from exploiting workers.

Next years junior Drs will get a pay cut if they do the same work as this years or they will work more evenings and weekends for the same pay as in the week.

thanks Autumn.

So... stay on because of a patient situation... your hours go up... as you say, it sounds like a recipe for printing money so the hospital gets very skilled at either telling you it doesn't count because you were inefficient or persuades you it's not in your professional interests to report that extra time.

Is that it? Sounds like a recipe for trouble between doctors and management surely? Also potentially a recipe for bullying?

Most doctors don't get band 3

Some do after monitoring but leaves sour taste in the department and doctors are often pressured to falsify their hours during monitoring exercises not to mention most of those so called computer programmes where you input your hours are rigged

To me anyone who has used or plans to use the nhs should be in support of the junior Drs.

These are people who are intelligent enough and hard working enough to have made it any industry they wanted including those careers that have amazingly high levels of remuneration.

They are willing to sacrifice better paid jobs with (most likely) better or at least more predictable hours and time with their families because they care.

They are valuable and deserve the pay and work/life balance to reflect that. The next waves of would be Drs will probably become stock brokers and lawyers with private health insurance.

thanks Thursday and mamadoc.

I've learnt something now - well worth ignoring the rude folk for.

OP management in some hospitals are bullies. I know this as I got so pissed off I blew up with the misdiagnosis thing, in the end. I got apologise from some hospitals, it helped. Others were nasty vile things avoiding an apology. I dread to think what it must be like to work for those hospitals as an employee.

I know not one single woman still earning in a law firm from my peer group. Not one. But that's another thread and law firms are quite good places to get out of anyway.

I cannot think of a better way to set people in management and clinicians ~(is that the word?) against each other than this "band three" thing.

It is such a clear recipe for bullying ....

What on earth is your peer group, MissTriggs? Law firms are jam-packed with woman at all levels, though admittedly they're under-represented at senior levels.

Whilst I support the JD and am sure there are many who are great at their job and care. Having an invisible rare multi system condition and children with it, I can assure you there are many fucking knob heads in medicine. there are many liars who pretend they understand our condition, when we as expert patients we know they are winging it as there are in other profesions.

no, gruntled, they are jampacked with women at junior to mid level. then we have babies. take another look.

DH is a consultant and works sat and Sunday every third weekend, so from Monday one week though to Thursday the next week. Friday should be a day off for this. He has gotten the Friday off only twice in the last six months due to workload.
He essentially works it unpaid . Last week he was operating until 11 pm that Friday. Missed my birthday meal.
We fully support the juniors in my house. Thengs cannot be allowed to get any worse.

What really pisses me off is here oyu have people defending the Doctors rights to not be bullied into working longer hours for less money, having their shift patterns changed and be expected to just roll over and adopt it and everyone is there supporting them yet only a few months back we had the tube drivers who were being forced to accept changes to their employment contract having to work longer hours so we have a 'night' tube and when they strike for their right to be paid more to compensate everyone was bashing them.

Flipping hypocritical. Both situations boil down to changes to contractual hours and pay yet one gets everyones support and the other gets told they are paid far too much and don't deserve their pay, monkeys can drive a train etc. and should just suck it up.

I don't trust a word that Jeremy hunt says so believe it when the junior doctors are going on strike for a damn good reason.

Striking is not an option taken lightly.
I want doctors to be well paid and not working excess hours

These people are amazing and literally have people's lives in their hands. Lets reward them appropriately please.

My own recent NHS experience was of incompetence - yet no individual was incompetent. It was structural failure - a failure of the system to operate efficiently which meant no-one could do their job particularly well.

It reminded me of the comment on Sven Goran Erikson when he stopped being the England manager: "how did he manage to get such a good team to play so badly?"

The public happily campaigns for more bobbies on the beat. Would a campaign for more front line staff not be effective?

The minister of life sciences told me to ask the Royal colleges to train JD in my condition. Pass the buck!

I support the doctors and I support them striking. I don't see why they should have their pay cut, given the number of years it takes to train and the skills they need. However, I get a bit when some people hammer the point about only earning £22k without stating that it's only for one year. That said, I don't think doctors are overpaid or anything, just think they need to focus on the points that will draw public support.

Yes, there is a lot of pressure to under report.
When the monitoring exercise is on I, as a consultant, get an email 'reminding me' to ensure that my junior Drs leave on time.
The monitoring is done electronically and medical staffing keep a tab on it in real time. If one of my Drs reports a breach then I get an email telling me to 'urgently discuss this with them and remind them of Trust policy' ie presumably lean on them to alter it. Of course I refuse to do this.

It isn't a good system but the alternative proposed is just to trust employers not to overwork Drs and rely on them to sue the Trust if they do. This will definitely not work. In the 1980s it did not work so why assume it will work now. Even with the penalty trusts are not getting locum cover for Drs who go off sick, or on mat leave or where a post is unfilled and are just relying on the rest of the Drs to fill the gaps. If there is no penalty at all this will just increase.

I have no idea of people's rights under EWTD but I guess claiming them involves taking the Employer to court and I just can't see any junior Drs doing that. I can recall being asked to sign an EWTD opt out as a standard clause within my contract as a junior Dr and that I just signed it as I had no idea what I was signing away.

I also blame schools not standing up to DfE, with all the medical evidence, attendance crap, what a waste of the NHS resources.

how much are they paid in years 8, say?

98% in favour of strike action!

"Yes, there is a lot of pressure to under report.
When the monitoring exercise is on I, as a consultant, get an email 'reminding me' to ensure that my junior Drs leave on time.
The monitoring is done electronically and medical staffing keep a tab on it in real time. If one of my Drs reports a breach then I get an email telling me to 'urgently discuss this with them and remind them of Trust policy' ie presumably lean on them to alter it. Of course I refuse to do this. "

Easy to refuse provided you're feeling reasonably secure yourself I guess...

"It isn't a good system but the alternative proposed is just to trust employers not to overwork Drs and rely on them to sue the Trust if they do. This will definitely not work."
obviously not (if things like that worked, there would be senior women in law firms!)
Any alternative suggestions? More staff?