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.

Stopping did you say you're planning to work abroad? As a Dr? Then thank God you won't be treating me or mine!

PP, my lawyer daughter worked 41 hours without a break (and that is not being on call but actually working) over a Christmas a year ago. I don't agree that JD have it much harder but I do agree that they have a legal right to strike and let us see what happens if they do. The market will prevail - when we cannot get doctors at the rates of pay paid then the state will act.

I thought that England was already a major importer of doctors? And nurses? And teachers? Ie the market is prevailing and it's just prevailing even more.

No shortage of lawyers, it would seem.

The latest hospital recruitment drives are finding it difficult to recruit suitibly qualified drs overseas. We just aren't the attractive employment prospect we once were.

Sleep deprivation reduces cognitive ability. It is inefficient to ask anybody to work for 40 hours straight, but at least in some jobs your potential for harming others while on the job is limited.

There's very much a shortage of juniors already. I can't remember I last worked on a fully-staffed rota. The pressure to do additional shifts to cover these gaps is always there.

IF doctors just said 'We don't want a 30% pay-cut and we don't think this is a good way to save lives', I would have no problem. And don't mind a strike, actually. But they don't say that, on the whole.

They say they don't care remotely about the money but they will abandon the NHS if this goes through because they feel unappreciated.

They say their top priority is the patients who will be negatively affected by this - but they have to go where they can earn the best salary.

They say they're not knocking other careers at all but absolutely every other career knows nothing about the hardships faced by a junior doctor (and are quite happy to pooh pooh the stress of every other profession while doing so).

They say this will not help the NHS but have little interest in putting forward a realistic, detailed suggestion of what Jeremy Hunt should try instead.

They have saturated the internet with 'letters to my daughter' style manipulative whining about how mummy doesn't see her much because she is a hero and wants to save lives, but now Mr Hunt has been so nasty it's just not worth it anymore.

They are quite happy to watch the NHS struggle to pay salaries that are much higher than any other healthcare worker (despite the jobs of some healthcare workers being utterly crap in similar ways) and to force the idea that the NHS should somehow be a commercial enterprise when it's quite clear that's never going to happen.

They are spinning some rubbish about doing it for the nurses (because they will be next) despite making nothing like the fuss when nurses got shafted because it wasn't their monkeys

They are threatening to emigrate in their droves straight after the tax-payer has spent £250 000 educating them so they can enjoy working in a proper commercial system elsewhere - having just escaped paying for the true cost of a medical education because we have a different policy here. That's called having it both ways.

If it didn't make financial sense for consultants to retire early we would have more of them.

If GPs didn't earn enough to run a home by working part-time we might have more of them working full-time. (Or, if, as seems possible, financial incentives aren't enough to keep them in the job, we would at least have a little left over to train more doctors).

Personally, I wouldn't train here because I'm not going to practice here -which means I have no right to train here. (And no, I'm definitely not going to be working somewhere that doctors have it better than they do here).

The government has the same plan for all sectors of public services- education, health, police adult social care, emergency services.

Cut salaries- by whatever way you can. Reduce pensions. Remove the power of unions. Privatise through various routes- sell off, franchise out, make people pay for the service (NHS insurance is on its way in, make no mistake about that).

That is why there has been a huge boom in private old people's homes, multi-academy chains, private healthcare companies. The government funds these by giving them public money to provide services. They are owned by Tory cronies who are lining their pockets on the disintegration of our NHS, Education system and adult social care. They are allowed to operate under different rules- for instance academies can ignore unions and teachers terms and conditions and national pay rises.

We will end up with no welfare state. That is the government plan- reduce it to as small as is possible and take no responsibility for the most vulnerable but make sure your private business mates can make a good living out of it.

But let's remind ourselves, people voted the Tories in again very recently with a large majority. I can only assume it is what those people wanted. There have been no secrets in the government agenda.

I live in the north-east. I know no one who voted Tory or LibDem. We remain Labour. I can not understand how the country ended up in this position. Conservative policy is always to hack at public services - always.It is a philosophical position- take as little responsibility for the vulnerable as you can.

It is why I could never ever vote Conservative.

We will end up in a 21st century version of Dickens as this goes on.

Until recently every single person in the UK had their entire education to university paid for by the state (assuming no private school). Most people do not work for the state.

Now undergraduates pay tuition fees.

Professional qualifications are paid for by individuals or employers, depending on the remuneration package offered by the employer. Generally accountants, for instance, are funded by their employer. Many government organisations provide training for employees. Sometimes an employer will attach strings if they pay for training, but they are not more onerous than the conditions junior doctors have to meet.

Certainly I can't think of a single industry where you have to agree to work full-time for one employer for the rest of your working life so that the employer 'gets their money's worth'.

They are spinning some rubbish about doing it for the nurses (because they will be next) despite making nothing like the fuss when nurses got shafted because it wasn't their monkeys

I compleyely stand by these JDs. As a nurse on a piss poor wage IMO for what I do I can say that the proposals for the JDs contract is shocking! I'm hard pushed to see why anyone would want the medical staff caring for them or their relatives to have no protection over how long they work?

It has nothing to do with nursing although we have enough to worry about without trying to ensure dictors aren't passing out due to exhaustion!! It's been on the cards for a while that we are going to loose our OOH pay. I have no doubt whatsoever that this will happen whatever the outcome of these strikes. Nurses are an easier targets and have little public or media support when targeted. If we felt that these guys were being unreasonable, after the shit we have had in the past, do you really think we would be supporting them? I certainly wouldn't!! They are facing a huge pay cut and no protection over working hours. Just because my profession have rolled over and taken it, doesn't mean I think everyone should!!

Stoppingbywoods - the more you write the less coherent you are and more like a tory spout-machine. You're embarrassing.

Deogratis how is being on call not working , When I was a JD and did 56 hours non stop starting at 9am Sat I didnt get a break until 6am on the Monday am when the surgical registrar took my page from me for 2 hours and told me to get some sleep as I wasnt safe to work anymore. And this wasnt a once off but regularly.

But I am, with this post ,joining in with all the others who seem to feel its some kind of competition. Even if you have absolutely no sympathy for anyone from the medical profession you must understand there is a political game here and if the government wins we will have a privatised health service. In that scenario doctors may actually be better off and those patients who can afford it will be too, but thousands of patients will suffer. Ans if you think things are expensive now just wait until services are being run for profit by private companies . Look at the example of nursing homes. When there were issues about long stay NHS beds , rather than sorting this out they were closed,which saved money in the short term but costs tax payers millions now. There are places which offer great care but training of staff, staffing levels and accountability is very different from that in the NHS.
shopping your points are so ludicrous that I feel you are being deliberately goady so I will refrain from a response

I'm an HGV driver. I earn more than a JD for a 48 hour week which I will be prosecuted for exceeding. Admittedly, I can kill more than one person at a time. Good for them for standing up to the "lower than vermin".

When the NHS is privatised and OP has to pay £100 for a GP appointment and £50 for her citalopram maybe then she'll realise that it was not unreasonable at all.
Doctors striking for patients, not just themselves.
The public are getting behind the Junior Doctors.
My dd is a medical student and already works full on. She is dedicating her life to her career, to the extent that when she has children it will timed to coincide with her training schedule and not with her biological clock.
She has brains and personality and and choices, and will not be treated like a disposable object. She is already considering her options if this contract goes through.
They didn't reduce the bankers pay when they caused the recession, why reduce the doctors pay because the government are incompetent at budgeting. It's disgraceful. Doctors are valuable assets and can and will do better than an NHS that doesn't value them.

jeremy that is a very good point! Doctors and most nurses would, themselves, be absolutely fine in a private healthcare system. No threats if disciplinary action for adding 20mls of taxpayers milk to their coffee for example despite it being offset by years of working for free Most are paid well enough to afford very favourable healthcare insurance if tax was lower. It's not a selfish fight at all. It is about the NHS and it is about our patients!

I agree with JeremyCunt . I have just resigned as a Deputy Head in a large secondary school. I have an 11 month old DS. My DH is a Deputy Head. We love our jobs but we can not both work 60 hours plus a week, have a marriage and a child and hopefully another child at some point in the next couple of years. We just can't do it. I am 36, I wanted to be a Head but before DS was working 60-70 hours a week every week.
Our working conditions are being continually eroded by this government and what they are doing to children is disgraceful.
People are so keen to 'beat up' and bitch on about teachers having it easy that no one is listening.
So I have resigned and the stress that has gone is amazing. My friend did it two years ago and set up her own Education Consultancy. I am going to work for her two days a week, paid for by schools asking for someone to go inand advise them on CPD, Teaching and Learning, Safeguarding, OFSTED prep etc, all the things I was paid for as a Deputy Head. Except I will leave at 5 pm and that will be it. And my daily pay will work about the same and I can pick and choose.
All because the government has made teaching and school leadership so unattractive schools are hiring people in and paying more to get less- they have no choice.

Yes instead of playing the game of who's got it worse, we should all be supporting each other. Teachers are getting a hard time, unskilled staff are getting a hard time, who is'nt ? Oh let me see, CEO's and the rich, they don't even pay their full tax dues. How many of them have money in tax havens. David Cameron, Richard Branson I'm looking at you.

I have copied the following from an online post by Dr Bob Gill
'The head of NHS England. Is Simon Stevens, Stevens used to be an executive of the US based private health care company, UnitedHealth. And he mapped out his plans in the Five Year Forward View.The latest assault on the NHS involves the imposition of a new contract for junior doctors that will see their salaries slashed by 30% with a requirement for evening and Saturday work.

The excuse used to justify this change is to provide a seven-day service and improve patient outcomes on weekends.

The reality is that more qualified staff are being driven out in preparation for the de-skilling that is always part of healthcare privatisation and corporate takeover. '

Actually they did reduce bankers pay when they bailed the banks out. Personally I thought they should have let them fail. It would have been cheaper to have picked up the pieces that way and sent a loud and clear message. However our politicians are absolutely incompetent. The ones who fiddled their expenses should be in jail. It was outright fraud.

I'm very supportive of doctors keeping current salaries. I don't think people realise just how expensive it is to be a doctor. I've talked on MN about my good friend who is a junior doctor in London. They had twins and it's killed them financially. They each earn about £60k a year yet they can't afford new shoes for their DC. They have an overworked nanny who is paid £35k a year. It's been horrendous for them and while they are committed to staying in the UK for now if these changes came through they would be leaving for Canada. I say this as I ordered Christmas gifts for her DC yesterday. I also purchased a gift card for Tesco for £300 so they have enough money to give their kids a Christmas. It breaks my heart to see my friend and her DH struggle like they do. It's so very very wrong.

I don't think most Tory voters want to see the end of the NHS. They were sold the idea that the NHS could still exist at no extra cost if only it were more efficient.

Want2bSupermum It sounds like the nanny is expensive, rather than the salary not going far enough. Surely that is a much bigger issue involving people in every profession, many of whom have shift work without any ability at all to have a £35 grand nanny?

Why didn't doctors go to all this trouble back when nurses were getting shafted? The striking, the PR campaign...why? If it's for the patients and the nurses - well, they've been threatened before and the difference now seems to be that doctors are also threatened. Can any doctor out there answer this?

And can any doctor explain how, logically, they feel driven out of the NHS because the deal would be better in the private sector, when studies have shown that the state (with its pension perks) actually looks after workers better than a private company?

And can any GP explain why, when the reforms for general practice came in and, they didn't pipe up and say 'this is a great deal for us but actually a bit excessive in light of what's happening to other healthcare workers and the NHS might come under strain trying to honour it'?

If they had gone on strike when nurses' pay was slashed, I would believe that this strike wasn't mainly about them. If GPs hadn't remained silent when that too-sweet deal was being introduced, I would believe they cared more about the NHS than their salaries.

stopping do you think the HDs should just accept this proposal then?

Doctors can't strike over nurses pay, why would they? the nurses themselves didnt couldn'tstrike, why would you expect others to on their behalf? Nurses are seen as easily replaceable and nothing that can be done about that unfortunstely. They are seen as replaceable, with degree qualified inexperienced nurses who can't do the job properly as there are few experienced nurses left with the time to help them .... I digress ... nurses aren't striking over doctors pay, they are supporting them though.