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.

How does the "penalty" system for breaching the working time directive work at the moment? If there is a breach, who pays money to whom? Hospital to Government?

Also, what are typical take home salaries for JDs at the moment, given that - as the more civil posters have kindly explained - the "basic" salary is not like a salesman's basic salary - there are always "antisocial" hours and those are always charged at "antisocial" rates.

If someone would be kind enough to explain this it might help me understand the argument that there is to be a 30% pay cut not an 11% pay rise.

Seriously, I've read the first post and all I can think to say is fuck off! Most people have no idea what it is to work under the pressures doctors do. And most people never see just how much time they dedicate to their jobs.

they feel it probably won't do any good and worry it will alienate the public

I can understand that Mamadoc. For every person who is prepared to just ask the questions and tolerate the abuse like me, there will be hundreds who seethe and -rightly or wrongly - do not give you their support.

I started this thread because my decorator commented in fury about the strike from the next room. He had a rant then said "but who am I to challenge the likes of them". Winning support has to come through better communication surely.

The calculator is well known to be rigged.
It takes into account pay protection so it can never give a negative answer.

Current junior Drs will not lose pay because they will have their pay protected I think for 3 years.
However the people coming into those self same posts next year, doing the same work will be paid less.
The government had hoped that current junior Drs would sell their future colleagues down the river as long as they didn't lose out themselves.

They forgot that they were dealing with a bunch of people for whom altruism and empathy are important and not with fellow politicians.

I am not a Dr, but I work for the NHS and I see how hard the Drs at my hospital work and how much they care about their patients (nnu) and how they will stay on well after their 'finish time' to help save the life of a baby.

I see Drs do 7 long days in a row (14 hours a day) 2 long shifts finishes me off, let alone 7!!!!

OP YABVU, learn some facts before posting

The issues are too complicated.
They don't fit into easy sound bites that can be explained simply to the general public
That is why Hunt can get away with misleading people so easily.
Most people are not going to take the time to understand and are just going to think 'bloody middle class brats whining about their pay.'
I didn't understand the teachers strike. I just felt peed off I had to organise childcare. I expect they had a good point too.
We are trying to explain to whoever will listen but it's not easy.

I always felt nurses should have gone on strike in the past but they wouldn't because they had the patient's welfare at heart. So we have not enough nurses doing ridiculous hours, yeah, great for the patients.

Rainbow I cried to read your post. I feel so upset to see the junior members of our profession go through this. Thinking of you all and praying this gets you somewhere.

I went through the 100-120 hour weeks of the late 80s, early 90s and ironically it was a Conservative Health minister who broke the awfulness - Virginia Bottomly - why her? Because her daughter was a junior doctor. How many cabinet ministers have family as junior medics atm I wonder?

Yabu.

I support strikes, whether It's teachers, nurses or transport staff. Some body has to stand up and reuse to be shafted by employers. It can't all be "race to the bottom".

On the working time directive loads and loads of professionals opt out of it and that is allowed under EU law. (Junior lawyers and many many others)

Secondly it does not apply to managing executives which you may well be able argue doctors are.

So it's a bit of a red herring really.

Junior lawyer works 120 hours a week, falls asleep at desk at 2am.

Junior doctor works 120 hours a week, falls asleep somewhere far less appropriate.

And please expand on how you'd argue that junior doctors are 'managing executives'...

I don't blame doctors for striking one little bit. Their working conditions get worse and worse. I'm not sure how the relentless pressure on public sector professionals is going to end.

It is pretty easy to google the pay scales. Nothing is hidden.

Starting salary for FY1 Dr in their 1st job out of medical school is 23,000 basic pay for a 40hr week.
It's not a kings ransom is it?

The out of hours payment varies greatly depending on what is expected. My current FY1 gets nothing extra as her contracted hrs are 9-5 Mon to Fri. That is very unusual and I notice she is very careful with her money and can't afford any extras considering she also has her student loans to pay off and accommodation and transport in a very expensive city (used to be free with the job but that perk went away years ago)

You can then get between 20% (band 1) to 80% (band 2a) extra on top of your basic salary depending on how many extra hours you work over and above the 40 and when those hours are ie how many nights and weekends. I used to get 80% in some of my junior Dr jobs but the norm was 20-40%.
Now you can see how the banding supplement is maybe a third to nearly a half of your salary and how that getting cut will impact very badly.

If your rota is in breach of the statutory rest requirements you can get retrospectively awarded band 3 which is 100% supplement for the time it was in breach. This is only awarded after it has been shown to be in breach in 2 separate monitoring exercises and it is a very high bar to get it. It is a penalty not something anyone can aim for.

Working time applies to doctors and has done for years. You cannot opt out of the rest requirements of WTR and you can only opt out of the hours limit if you choose to do so.

BTW mamadoc, if the calculator is rigged that would be really shocking. I hope that becomes public.

Can I ask a question of all the medics on here, approximately how much do you have to pay for indemnity insurance out of your own pockets?

Junior lawyer works 20 hours straight and makes a mistake - client complains.

Junior doctor works 20 hours straight and makes a mistake - client dies.

Also, the legal profession is already dominated by the market. Except in a few cases if you can't pay a lawyer you can't gain the services of a lawyer. The more money you have, the better lawyers you can employ. Lawyers tend to follow the money.

That isn't yet how the UK health system works, but JH certainly seems to be pushing for it. Some may agree with this approach, but it would clearly be the end of the NHS.

OP, junior doctors' pay works like this:

FY1 (first year of being a doctor) gets a basic salary of £22600ish before tax(not the exact figure) - pay scales are available if you search on the BMA's website. They work in 4 month rotations - across different departments and often different hospitals.

For each of those 4 month blocks they will receive an additional amount on top of their salary, depending on the average rota for their role - how many weekends, nights they do on top of regular working hours - 50%, 40%, 20%, 5% of their basic salary. Some do not have banding, if they are not deemed to be working unsociable hours.

It is a fixed amount - it's not based on actual hours worked and doctors having to stay late or working more than average at any one time do not get additional pay per hour.

It's very difficult to give a typical "take home" salary because of this - there are many combinations of banding they can have across the year.

Many junior doctors (and in all likelihood there are consultants doing this too) are expected to arrive before their contracted hours and stay beyond them should the need arise.

Good luck to all of you striking. I am a GP and we need to all stand together and protect the conditions of future doctors.

x-posted with mamadoc - apologies!

Sugar21 I don't think it's is a huge amount (pretty sure mine is no more than 300) if you are a junior doctor working within your contract and consultant supervisor

I would expect it to be more if you worked in the private sector which some non consultant doctors do

There are alot of other expenses though courses which can run into 100s and even 1000s for really specialist subjects, exams again 100s, books, journal and society memberships, if you want to publish or present at amerying you pay the fees, travel costs getting to these, GMC of course

OP, YABU. You need a test. You need a trained professional who interprets the test. This person should be paid. This person should also get some rest.

Have you ever been a young doctor? Have you ever seen patients for 24 hours? It is pretty gruesome. I train young doctors and many of them start out idealistic and then quickly become disillusioned. I don't see patients atm because I prefer to spend some time with my children. I was forced to give up vacations and most of my free time when I was training, I could do it for some time but I am not a robot. Would you prefer a system where all the doctors leave the public sector and you have to pay the the full cost of everything out of pocket?

Excuse my ignorance on this, but I'm not sure how up to date my information is. Is the Saturday working thing meant to apply to all doctors, or just those in emergency fields? And does it also apply to consultants?

It seems utterly pointless to insist on doctors working in non-emergency areas like, say, dermatology working at weekends, and equally if they are working they surely need access to consultants. Also presumably if doctors are routinely working on Saturdays then they will need support workers, e.g. radiologists, pharmacists, more nurses, admin staff etc. How would that be dealt with?

Thank you for your explanation Lolli