mamadoc You have NO idea what it's like to be a lawyer!!! 
at the idea of a lawyer telling my BILs they've had enough for the night and would like to take it home and work from there! They are left in one room and when my BILs return in the morning, rested, they are still there. And they didn't have a choice. Yes, they could cry with tiredness too. No, they don't always have time to eat. No, the contracts could not 'wait until the morning' and even if they could, the point was that they aren't given the choice! And if they make a mistake, they get into massive trouble and quite possibly are out on their ear. The pressure is unreal. So are the hours. I have a friend who is a lawyer in the city and has, for the last fifteen years, worked 14 hour days as standard, often including Saturday, and sometimes more. He would lose his job if he didn't. I've never heard him complain, either. It's the life he chose. I'm only mentioning it now because doctors refer to lawyers as if it's easier.
Most of us are paid a fair wage but nothing extravagant
Tell that to the rest of the population who are looking at your pay and pension relative to everyone else's. It's rather lacking in integrity to talk about a junior doctor's starting salary as if it's the career average.
I'm sure we'd all like doctors to be paid as much as possible, but it's ridiculous to claim they're not paid 'properly' when doctors live amongst us and their comfortable lifestyles are on show for everyone to see. It's widely known that there simply isn't enough money to run the NHS anymore. If doctors weren't driven by some unseen force greed to work against their will it would seem as they really only care about the patients we would have enough of them and that would be one problem solved. The 'you have to pay us more or we'll be forced to work privately simply because we'd be better off that way' sounds a little ridiculous to the patients who walk past the doctors' big shiny cars on their way into a hospital for an appointment they've waited six months for. (Teachers know they'd often be paid more in a private school but there a mystifying majority of them working in state schools).
Anyway, a report found that once the pension perks have been factored in, you're better off in the state sector anyway. I would like to see doctors holding up their hands and saying 'yes we admit that in some ways we're rewarded and the sweet pension is one of them so thanks for your taxes'. Because to listen to you all one would think you're fed on crusts of bread and chained to a drain pipe.
On this thread we have had doctors claiming they couldn't possibly do extra work privately because they are too busy in their NHS work and others they do work privately and deserve to do so, doctors claiming they struggle to get by on what they earn but others saying they are well paid for what they do (and must continue to be or they'll walk), still others saying they don't give a damn about the money but are purely interested in the deal the patients getting - yet there isn't enough money in the pot and they won't consider accepting less. Fair enough but the NHS suffers. I would like to see doctors paying for their education or else being obliged to work x number of years full-time in the UK.
The NHS was never supposed to deliver market rates because it's not a capitalist system and was never intended to support rich people at the top. It may not work, but that's another issue. It can't deliver something it wasn't set up to deliver. Perhaps the problem is our outlook. A more socialist model works by all individuals being valued in a more equal way and having a shared interest in the good of all. So nobody does something just because it would be better for them alone.
Sadly, there isn't a way that the NHS could reform without affecting the patients so saying it's a bad reform for this reason begs the question of what a good reform would look like.
If doctors care so deeply about the NHS, why didn't they point out when GPs got that massive payrise and great overtime deal that it was hugely expensive, probably unsustainable and rather over the top, given what was happening to other salaries? They must have been aware of it. If they genuinely care about the patients more than the money? And where were they when nurses were treated appallingly? Was it not so dreadful because nurses couldn't earn more elsewhere? How ridiculous.
Where do doctors suggest that Jeremy Hunt should find the extra money required to pay them enough to carry on as they're doing? And are more doctors needed - is that's what's being said? Or are you saying we should simply pay the ones we have more money so the consultants will work extra and the ones we have will continue to work anti-social hours? I'm genuinely confused about your proposed solution to all this.
mamadoc There's nothing subjective about a three day waiting time versus 6-9 months. That made a huge difference to my recovery. Likewise, I don't for one moment think my consultant put me through unnecessary tests or treatment because I was paying him, but thanks for the suggestion 