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.

[gonetoseeamanaboutadog]

I don't support anyone being forced to work hours that will leave them with no family life at all.

At the same time, medicine has always been a career that involves sacrifice, and I don't think we can hope to avoid that, especially with the NHS the way that it is.

If the following were different, I'd support the doctors' strikes whole-heartedly:

1. They have been annoyingly emotional emotional and at times hysterical in their campaign. I feel manipulated and it was excessive when many many employees (especially in the NHS) could also talk at length about what a crap time they're having. Not saying they have no justification. It was just excessive and quite obviously a determined streamlining of public opinion.
   

1. The money argument is deeply contradictory; also annoying. 'We're only doing this because we love the NHS so much but if you don't give us the same deal as we could get in the private sector we're off' simply doesn't wash. No reason why doctors should be mistreated in the NHS, but also no reason why doctors are obliged to take the highest paying job. There are plenty of people in Britain working for lower wages (and not the least gifted people either) because they recognise it's where they can make the most difference.
   

1. Likewise, the pension thing needs to be sorted out if I am to believe that doctors love the NHS so much. If they love it enough for us all to support them, they should love us back by working until proper retirement age, like the rest of us. And they should not be finding it so easy to live comfortably on part-time wages. Similarly, I daresay I don't know anything about anything, but if I was an NHS consultant and the NHS could only afford to pay me for one or two of my sessions in the week, I wouldn't hurry off to a private clinic where I could make more money, or not much. I would offer to work more for the NHS for less. I would do it because I care about the patients. If doctors care as much as they say they do, they would do this too, regardless of the rights or wrongs of it, because (a) NHS consultants are not starving and (b) it's the patients who would benefit. Apparently consultants don't care about the money and care deeply about the patients, too, but this is not reflected at all in their career choices. When you look at the gap in salary between those working in the charitable sector and those who don't, it's clear that some people in the UK are capable of doing this sort of thing and if they didn't, there would be a great deal more suffering in the country.
   

1. Every time a junior doctor says 'I'll leave the UK if you don't give me a better deal', (as well as feeling genuine sympathy), I feel like thrashing out some kind of a deal regarding tuition fees. If the NHS is skint and haemorraging doctors, it can at least not be providing cut-price education for doctors working in other countries. And yes, let's include everyone in this, but doctors are a stand-out case because they are so very expensive to train and so many of them are leaving. Many people are feeling this and doctors are failing to address the fact that they're having their cake and eating it in that respect - which shows a lack of decency IMO.
   

So yes, I would support the doctors whole-heartedly were it not for this. Rant over :)

[CountessOfStrathearn]

"Right, but it is rather misleading to suggest that anyone will get a paycut isn't it?"

misstriggs, no, it isn't misleading, but the truth.

Doctors taking time out to do research or have maternity leave will definitely be losing pay because their pay is only protected at the job they were last in rather than where otherwise they would be. The Equality Assessment is yet to be revealed and wasn't going to be done until the contract was decided but it is clear that anyone taking time out of training to have babies/do life saving research/travel to learn new skills/volunteer abroad will be penalised.

Also, the junior doctors doing the same jobs from August 2016 (so our current final year medical students) will now be paid remarkably less than they were expecting for doing the same job but on a harder rota.

Mysteriously Jeremy Hunt claims that the vast majority of doctors will actually get a pay rise, which is a puzzle given that the overall "pay envelope" remains the same, which means that some people WILL be getting a pay cut.

[CountessOfStrathearn]

gonetosee, let's look at your points:

1. How have doctors been "annoyingly emotional emotional and at times hysterical"? We haven't lied, like Jeremy Hunt has in Parliament, misleading the public on papers that consultants don't work weekends (less than 1% have opted out), more people die at the weekends (the highest death rate day is a Wednesday, the weekends in those papers were defined as Friday-Monday, juniors are already there 24/7).
   

As for "many many employees (especially in the NHS) could also talk at length about what a crap time they're having", there is real support amongst the vast majority of staff and a real understanding in the NHS that this is only the first battle and that once the junior doctors have been defeated, next comes the consultant contract (currently under negotiation), the nurses contract (the student bursaries have already been removed for student nurses working proper nurses' shifts), the "ambulance drivers" as our Health Secretary likes to refer to paramedics etc.

1. I've not seen anyone say, "We're only doing this because we love the NHS so much but if you don't give us the same deal as we could get in the private sector we're off." Doctors would get paid far more in the private sector but the juniors haven't asked for the same pay (no one asked for a pay rise), just fair terms and conditions and not for a pay cut for doing the very essential out of hours work.
   

I can't be bothered with really dealing with Point 3 because it did come across as a bit of a nonsensical rant. I knew very few doctors who do private medicine and the vast, vast majority of consultants I know are already working well beyond their contracted hours for free already. You also demonstrate that you don't really understand how the NHS and doctors work. I can't just do an extra clinic as a favour on my own. All the admin needs sorting out, you need a receptionist, a clinic nurse, the specialist nurses on hand, the phlebotomy department to be open to do the required blood tests. Doctors don't work in isolation, but need the infrastructure in place, for which there is no extra funding appearing to do these magical extra clinics.

Point 4 is interesting. Most doctors stay in the UK, working for the monopoly employer of the NHS (no one will want to employ you privately until you are a qualified GP/consultant), for the 5-10+ years that it can take, working unsociable hours for years and years, paying for their own GMC fees/professional indemnity insurance/postgraduate exams etc. Really the number leaving before paying a decent amount of blood, sweat and tears isn't much.

[Sothisishowitfeels]

I have to say my 4 month old dd was in hospital during the strike and I had no idea it was even on. My gp sent us to A and e where we were seen straight away, admitted and checked through the night. I really had no idea it was the strike day.

[Hotbot]

The majority of staff apart from the jnr doctors have already seen a real decline in their take home pay. Staff at higher grades who have left have been replaced at a lower grade for the same job , if indeed they have been replaced. No real pay increase in yrs. I am actually getting a bit sick of the jnr Drs complaining tbh. The strike is about money ......

[MissTriggs]

Thanks Countess

I see the issue with maternity leave- but isn't that a rather narrower point on equality legislation?

Isee it is always hard to be the first year group facing a new regime. that is a point on loss of status

But these are not pay cuts in the way that the crude campaign would have us believe

I would be more taken by the point made above that the strikers will not have their pay cut but are thinking of those coming after them. but that was not the Bma's line...

imagine going to your gp when you are ill and getting cheap misleading rhetoric instead of distilled facts that would help you make an informed choice. you would not listen to that dr and you would be right not to- and that could lead to tragic results. that is howI feel about this campaign

[bananafish81]

But it's not just about pay

It's about increasing elective care across 7 days a week (without any of the allied services to make it possible)

Currently you have 7 days acute + 5 days routine care

The Tories want 7 days acute + 7 days routine care

Which is great and what everyone in the NHS wants.

Except that with the same amount of Drs and no additional funding this means

• compromising acute care by reducing staffing levels during the week to staff the extended routine care at weekends

• doctors stretched even more thinly than they already are to do the same job but with fewer resources

The new contract removes the safeguards that penalise hospitals that allow doctors to work dangerously unsafe hours

It's not safe

And it's not fair

To have 7 day routine care you need more funding, more doctors, more nurses, phlebotomists, porters, radiographers, pharmacists. Oh and 7 day social care services at to deal with all the patients that can't be discharged at weekends because of lack of social care provision

But fuck it. It's a manifesto pledge. We don't have to say how we're going to make it happen. Just repeat 7 day NHS ad nauseam and blame the greedy doctors

[80schild]

I always thought doctors were paid okay, and that in my mother's words they should just "get on with it" until I saw what doctors in other countries were paid. Most countries pay between £20-30k more which I think is huge. Health and safety aside this does mean the government are taking the piss. Also, not entirely sure where the money will come from to pay them? There is no money (apparently).

[Hotbot]

Where I work t he X-ray staff do work 7 days with littl extra resources and really crap shifts and lower banding you need to wake up !

[TheSinkingFeeling]

I support the junior doctors completely. Solidarity!

[howabouthisone]

Jeremy Hunt has written a book about his wishes to privatise the NHS. The Tories want to move our economy to one where the user pays for the services they recieve.
This is the first blow across the bows. once the Drs go down itll be schools and servises next in the race to the bottom for workers rights.
And Call me Dave and his pals will be raking it in when they get the ownership of the newly privatised businesses.

[jeremyisahunt]

Jeremy Hunt is just a stupid bully who only got his job because of his sneaky mates. It's like leaving a toddler to run and manage Ikea.

[gonetoseeamanaboutadog]

Point 4 is interesting. Most doctors stay in the UK, working for the monopoly employer of the NHS (no one will want to employ you privately until you are a qualified GP/consultant), for the 5-10+ years that it can take, working unsociable hours for years and years, paying for their own GMC fees/professional indemnity insurance/postgraduate exams etc. Really the number leaving before paying a decent amount of blood, sweat and tears isn't much.

Junior doctors are very vocal that those numbers are set to go through the roof though. And the numbers that do emigrate early now may not seem much to you, but they might indeed make a difference if we were allocating where that money could be spent. I also think we would need to break down the 'blood, sweat and tears' of being a junior doctor in any country (i.e., those where full tuition fees are paid) and compare it with the situation for junior doctors here before we start assuming that because they work hard, they should be exempt from having to pay for their education if they emigrate relatively soon afterwards.

I don't buy the 'we're doing it for our colleagues in the NHS' line. Doctors do not have a history of being overly bothered by poor conditions for their colleagues Doctors were not helpful (or, as they have told us repeatedly) in a position to help when nurses got shafted recently and the changes that are coming in have already been applied to some NHS workers - I didn't see the doctors out complaining. Likewise, when GPs complain about the dreadful hours they work, all the GPs working part-time, emigrating and retiring early seem not to see how their decisions could be adding to the load for patients and colleagues alike.

I do understand that there is more to a clinic that the consultant's fee, indeed I do. But I also think it's an idea worth exploring - or it would be, if doctors cared first and foremost about the patients.

How have doctors been overly emotional... They all seem permanently on the verge of tears, for a start, and for people who are supposed to cope well in a crisis, they use histrionic language continually - 'breaking point/on its knees/devastated'. They become very agitated and aggressive if there is any suggestion that the roles they have appointed (in which Hunt is cast as a demonic bully and they are a cross between saints and martyrs, brimful with vast amounts of compassion for the suffering patients they will not now be treating). They write open letters to their daughters in which they explain that although mummy is a superhero saving lives, since nasty Mr Hunt has made mummy feel undervalued, the long hours of being away from her are no longer 'worth it' (I kid you not). It's irritating, given that people everywhere are having a rubbish time - there are probably people cleaning the toilets in that hospital who are having a much worse time. I think there's a self-absorption in the hysteria that is a little immature, given the hours involved in many jobs these days, low or high paying, the huge levels of sacrifice and responsibility involved in many of those jobs, and the generous lifetime salary enjoyed by doctors. No, the new deal is not right, but neither are doctors up the creek quite as badly as we're hearing, relatively.

And yes, they absolutely do say there is nothing more important than the patients and they're doing all this for them. Except, the higher salary they will get when they emigrate is obviously very important, because the overriding message is that they will emigrate.

[nocoolnamesleft]

Yep, cleaning the toilets is definitely more stressful than, for instance, trying and failing to resuscitate a dying child. And then having to go straight back to work where people shout at you because they had to wait.

Sadly, not actually a hypothetical.

[StillMedusa]

Gonetoseeaman... did you graduate with 60k debt before you even started your job? For a wage of 22.5k (on an unbanded rotation)?

That's what my DD1 (an F1 Junior doc) is on. Not exactly rolling in it to pay a rent, can't afford to drive and working round the clock to save bloody lives while paying out a ton in fees..more exams to follow. 24 years old with that debt (tuition plus student loan maintenance ) Medics ONLY get tuition fees paid in their 5th year here in the UK... that's a lot of debt.

The new wave of junior doctors ARE up shit creek with the new contract. My DD1 has worked bloody hard to become a doctor, and her ability toDO her job matters... at 24 years old she is making life saving decisions on a daily basis... and you tell her she is being over emotional about being expected to work EVEN longer hours for what will be a pay cut? My first time on MN ever...
fuck you.

[CarpetDiem]

The Junior Doctors have my FULL support. They are the ones at the coal face of the NHS. The government needs to get in money from the big tax dodging corporations: Amazon, Vodafone, Starbucks et al. Not try & get our overworked Drs to do unsafe practices for less money.
J. C Hunt does not care about individual patients. The Jnr Drs DO & need time away from work to reflect, recharge and think, so as they are able to do their job safely.
GOOD LUCK JUNIOR DRs

[KeepingitReal2]

Well said still medusa
A lot of the people with comments like gonetoseeaman are just bitter

[Brummiegirl15]

Absolutely well said StillMedusa

I support Junior doctors 100%

[Peaceandloveeveryone]

Do you know what I don't like about these threads? That some of those in support of junior Drs sneer at other jobs and denigrate them to show how important they are. It is perfectly possible to support them without doing that. I have seen it on the Dr Rant FB page too.

[gonetoseeamanaboutadog]

That's the kind of hysteria that closes down dialogue I'm afraid.

Financially and in terms of morale, many people in the country (including the person cleaning the toilets of the hospital) are under a great deal of stress. Just getting by is incredibly difficult for many people at the the moment and it's very, very stressful. Add to that, morale. Many people, in the NHS and elsewhere, are doing a job in which their morale will be at rock-bottom and they are deeply under-valued. So doctors are not alone there and compared against the rest of the population (and their own lifetime salary and the prestige afforded to consultants), they are not doing badly at all actually. The person cleaning the toilets, and indeed the nurse, are not going through 10-15 years in order for things to be better. They will in all probability be underpaid and undervalued for the rest of their lives. Everyone knows that a junior doctor will not always be a junior doctor and even now, as they tell us frequently, they have options. That's not to say their conditions should be unfair and I'm not saying support Hunt's proposal, but I do think the arguments used by the junior doctors (in which they are more poverty stricken and more hard done by than anyone else in the world, ever) are somewhat offensive, given how most of the country is having to live.

Talking about leaving uni in debt is also not terribly rational. In other countries, medics are leaving uni in debt to the tune of hundreds of thousands. Against an NHS doctor's lifetime salary, the very small proportion of debt that UK medics leave with is very affordable. They are now able to enjoy the best of both worlds by incurring this very much smaller level of debt and then leaving the country to work alongside doctors (in better working conditions and for higher salaries) who will be paying a much higher debt off than they are. Even if they work ten years in this country first, that will still have worked out really well for them and really badly for the cash-strapped NHS.

[MissTriggs]

I have this gut feeling that if someone sensible were in charge and wanted to really fix the NHS they wouldn't start with Dr's pay.

I suspect they would probably start with bed-blocking and social care.

I wish we could talk about the underlying things that are breaking the system. I honestly don't believe it's emigrating doctors. I do accept that deregulation is a prime suspect.

Dad's now been in hospital for three weeks after a hip replacement. He keeps getting infections and isn't being encouraged to stand at all. Mum says it's like being stuck in an airport for three weeks. No-one is doing their job well because they can't. She says if you wanted to work out how to kill someone, this would be it.

I can't help thinking that jr docs would be happy if the system was working. Paying them more isn't going to achieve anything in itself.

My uncle worked as a GP and worked fewer hours for less pay and was happy and able to share the life events of patients. Arguably drs are paid too much over a lifetime but treated like shit in return. Many decent docs. would happily earn £50.000 not £70,000 basic to do 36 hours/week in a hospital that worked surely? 99% of the ones who are parents would prefer that surely? That is what professors and lawyers who work 36 hours/week would expect

I feel that drs were sold this vague idea that "other professionals" were earing far more in the city (we aren't! how do they get this idea?) and that the government called their bluff by saying "ok we'll pay you well over a lifetime but we will treat you like a third world factory worker in return". City workers burn out by definition - we don 't want that in drs, we want lots of drs who will settle in one place and be part of a community for their whole professional life.

[MissTriggs]

could anyone link to Jeremy Hunt's book on privatisation please?

[stitch10yearson]

I'm sorry your surgery has been postponed.

Doctors are advocates for patients and there care. By striking that is what they are doing, although I understand, OP, that in your current position that is difficult to appreciate. Imagine a time in the future when there is no NHS and your emergency C section cant happen because there are no doctors or other health care staff available unless you happen to have the actual cost of the operation in your bank account, available to access easily . That is what the strike is protesting against.

[peppatax]

I still don't understand though why the medical profession think that they shouldn't be required to evolve with the environment. I work in a professional job in the private sector, get inflationary pay rises if I'm lucky, work more hours and have less real income than 10 years ago but rather than go on strike I just accept the career path I've chosen means my job is very different than what it was used to be. I don't threaten to leave the company/country and stamp my feet if I don't get what I want.

Just consider this - is the NHS at crisis point because the service needs changing? Is this not what is trying to be achieved in creating a consistent service so there aren't crisis shifts that require doctors to work so long?

I also agree with pp that hopefully what will happen if doctors leave the NHS as they threaten to, the tuition fees are reconsidered. Why should anyone have expensive education and training to become a doctor in this country then go somewhere else to earn more, without having returned any sort of contribution to the people that have funded their qualification?

[stitch10yearson]

gonetoseeaman, I wish I could tell you about the week I have just had. But I cant. Not on public forum like this. I can only use emotive language. Yes, I did have a cry on saturday afternoon because I couldnt look after my patients. The very lovely nursing and housekeeping staff gave me a hug and a mug of hot sweet tea and told me that I was a good doctor because they could see I was trying to do my best for my patients. Yes, its emotive language, but thats because its frustrating when the system is such that you CANT do what is best for your patients.