doctor strike

[JudyWilliams]

Bit of a rant. Has anyone else been moved three times because of the doctors
Strike? I'm booked in for ELCS originally today, then tomorrow, then Friday. Now Monday!

Slowly loosing hope! That and I'm now sofa/bed bound due to hip/back complications. I'm just wondering if anyone is in a similar situation.

Sorry you are waiting and have been postponed, it must be incredibly frustrating. As with these things, the actual impact on individuals is not always good for supporting th strike. However, I took a friend to hospital today and we were seen on time, by a consultant as no junior doctors were available, treated and out within 30 minutes. Same visit a month ago was late, rushed and took over an hour. It's changed my opinion about the doctors strike - especially when only 7-8 doctors were actually outside the hospital during the strike at a big city hospital.

It is starting to have an impact on support I think too. I myself have worked in the NHS for 6 years as an allied health professional. So I really do understand the frustrations. But yes, I can see how it's difficult to comprehend when things like
Experiences you've had happen. I'm glad I'm not alone in this!

Let's hope the outcome is the best one for the NHS in the end.... Whenever that may be. And worst case I'll still get to meet our little one oh Monday!

It shouldn't have an impact on support except to strengthen it. The government have decided to impose a contract not health professionals.

No bringme, the doctors have to take responsibility for their own actions. No one is forcing them to strike. It's up to the public to decide whether they are justified in what they're doing. It's a PR battle.

Laurie would you accept having your contract changed?

A monopoly employer unilaterally imposing an unfair and unsafe contract? Stalin would be proud of Hunt!

I am not a juniordoctor, but I do support them. Despite it making me quite a lot of work.

Icky, I'm not saying they're right or wrong. Simply that if they want my support they've got to convince me. I have enough on my plate keeping myself and my family afloat.

As it happens yes, I've had an imposed contract change that left me with lower pay. I've also seen many people get made redundant. I work in the private sector and I absolutely do not take my current package and conditions as a given forever. It doesn't work like that.

Have to say my local hospital runs more efficiently when everyone's on strike. Perhaps we don't need all these staff?

as a consultant i completely support the juniors. they are hard working, and dedicated ; they already work long hours, nights and weekends. this new contract is unworkable for them, because the hours are not compatible with any kind of family life. so many are disheartened and seriously considering leaving medicine or moving abroad - and these are often people in their 30s who have trained for years and years and sat numerous exams to get where they are. hunt refuses to back down because it would mean career suicide for him, so there is a stalemate. the only answer is to replace hunt, but I'm sure that won't happen.
ps many aren't outside hospitals on the picket line because they are picketing at westminster, or doing other activities e.g. providing free paediatric life support classes to families

But medicine, like joining the army, is known for not exactly being compatible with having a family life.

Hospitals will appear to run more efficiently as pretty much all elective/ routine appointments are cancelled, so the workload is greatly reduced.

And Laurie yes you may have had a change to conditions and pay, but the difference being that if you really don't like it, you can go to another private company in your sector. The NHS is a monopoly employer, this means that junior doctors can only be employed by 'NHS employers'. There is no other option for them in the UK.

However, they will be able to work abroad. Applications to do so has increased 1000% since the announcement of contract imposition. I think we should all be gravely concerned about a mass exodus of junior doctors- the impacts felt will be far greater than those where junior doctors provide emergency only cover.

true caughtup , and many of us have made sacrifices, and struggled to get any kind of balance. but if the new contract comes in, its totally unworkable for these young doctors. its not a lack of dedication or commitment. I'm constantly impressed by the teams i work with.

Have to say my local hospital runs more efficiently when everyone's on strike

That's because all the elective surgery has been cancelled and consequently there's far less patients than usual.

I best hand my kids over for someone else to raise then, what with both their parents being junior doctors. Or one of us leave medicine, which is what many in our situation will be forced into doing. Or we could just leave England altogether - my current favoured option.

Ginpig, in theory I could have, but at the time it happened there were virtually no jobs on offer in my industry. The vast, vast majority of us put up and shut up - because we had no choice.

I too work in a very unfamily friendly industry, think overseas projects for weeks at a time and at a moments notice. While I think junior doctors have every right to be outraged and fight on behalf of themselves, I think they have to realise that plenty of others, who are also highly qualified and work long hours are also struggling, so simply don't have the reserves or inclination to be very vocal on their behalf.

Interestingly the polls show that it isn't having an impact on support.

www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3705/Continued-support-for-the-junior-doctors-ahead-of-third-round-of-strikes.aspx

What will certainly affect your care in the future is being operated on by tired doctors in unsafe rotas with few support staff to allow them to provide a proper service.

"especially when only 7-8 doctors were actually outside the hospital during the strike at a big city hospital."

Picket rules state that there should only be 6 official people at a picket line to prevent people feeling intimidated on crossing it. The junior doctors who weren't there were possibly giving blood, teaching CPR to the public in the street, talking to school pupils about careers in medicine (in a non-political way), all things that local juniors have been up to on strike days.

If you think it's been bad when they're on strike, just wait until August when it becomes clear exactly how many will not be taking up posts then, because they've gone abroad.

We are hemorrhaging UK trained doctors. That's fine, if a doctor is a doctor, and you think people who trained for a different population, in a different system, with English as a second language are just as good. (I'm not saying there aren't excellent doctors from overseas, but I've also heard many people moaning about doctors who struggle with regional accents, or have accents themselves, etc.) Communication is key in medicine, and difficult in a second culture and language. It feels a shame to make native doctors go elsewhere, when they've cost so much to train.

Hospitals appear to run smoothly on strike days in the same way they do on Christmas day- reduce the work right down, cancel electives and clinics etc. The consultants support the strike, and are covering for their juniors. This does not in any way mean the hospital is overstaffed normally, and that comment shows a real ignorance of the way hospitals work.

To the poster who suggested medicine is like the army- no, it's not. They took the housing, and sold it off. Medicine was sold to a generation of very bright 18 year olds as being a certain (not easy, but not army) way of life. Now the government is making that life much much harder, and has sold the NHS off, to boot.

The NHS is gone, people. And if you wait until August, so will the doctors.

If you look at the consequences of the contract imposition, it is massively sexist. For people like runningwithacheesegrater where both partners are junior doctors working in acute specialties it will be extremely difficult to arrange childcare to cover one of the example rotas published by NHS England.

That, combined with a massive reduction in income will mean that, almost certainly, have to give up work- and we all know that will most likely be the female partner. Plus putting the brakes on pay increment for people not working full time (ie people in research or on maternity leave) just makes this particularly bad news for women.

running I've said it to you before and I'll say it again- come to Wales!

Have any of you seen the rotas that have been published? 60+ hours in a week, it's shocking. I fully support the strikes and while I don't like the fact it's impacting on patients there really is no other choice, the new contract is quite simply unsafe!

Can Jeremy add?

Laurie it seems like you are saying something bad happened in your career so now you want it to happen to everyone else. Or at least you don't mind if it happens to everyone else.

I am so sad that the junior doctors will on their most part leave the UK. People will have to go private I guess for their medical care, and I guess that this is what the government wants. The NHS was a wonderful thing.

But this strike is not about unsafe working hours is it? It's about the refusal to accept a change to the proposal on an element of pay. Government offers a smaller increase to basic pay rise and larger increase to 'antisocial' hours but BMA said 'no thanks'. The flat out refusal to negotiate is always going to damage public support. If I was offered a contract I'd always negotiate but the doctors are saying 'our way or no way'. Similarly for teachers, the job has changed in the same way for doctors in that the environment has changed and adaptation of therefore needed as the model can't stay the same. Higher patient numbers, 24/7 services elsewhere and more complex problems. Public servants seem to think that they can forever stay in a model of 'how things used to be'.

judywilliams I'm really sorry that your surgery has been moved several times, it must be horribly frustrating.
Having worked as a jnr doctor in obstetrics, I've seen ELCS cancelled repeatedly all the time - regardless of any strike action etc.
This is because the nhs is underfunded for the service it aims to provide.
The rotas and timings are run so tightly that with even he slightest disruption - be that a more complicated procedure than expected, or a single staff member is unwell - the system falls apart.
We already have multiple rota gaps in o&g at my hospital meaning elective procedures are cancelled with alarming regularity when we aren't able to fill the gap.
Unfortunately the nhs I see every day is one at breaking point and the new contract will do nothing but make this worse.

Ps, good luck for Monday, and congratulations in advance!

Laurie, a lot of our junior doctors chose to volunteer with health promotion at our local lung cancer centre for No Smoking Day rather than picket. They were still out helping as usual.