to not support the junior doctors?

[MenMust]

just that really. it seems to be about them wanting more pay rather than saving the NHS. am I wrong? feel free to educate me (rather than attacking me!) ....

As a very old paediatric nurse/midwife I totally support the strike. As an adoptive mum of 3 very complex health needs children who are/were (RIP beautiful boy) frequently hospitalised never did a day go by when they were not seen by a consultant. We do have a 24/hr 7/day week NHS but we must be prepared to pay for it.
Maybe all pay 1% from every our earnings/benefits I would be quite happy to cut my state pension by this amount to pay for this fantastic NHS

Thank you pretty woman I have copied and pasted that unto the chat thread.

There are so many misconceptions surrounding the junior doctor contract dispute.

I'll say it yet again: this is not 'all about money' and as a junior doctor I am not asking for a pay rise.

Thankyou HeCantBeSerious, PettyWoman and everyone else. I think I get it now!

I support you junior doctors! And I would pay a bit more to have a seven day NHS.

I would be happy to pay more too to protect the NHS.

"Made our pension crap"? Crapper than the that of the majority of people who don't enjoy a £2.9 billion/annum public investment in final salary NHS pensions?

Never mind, I'm sure when those doctors who don't take their publicly funded specialist training into the private sector and have to settle for the miserable £100k/annum that consultants end up on are able to retire they'll manage to scrape by on the £30k/annum pension they'll still get.

Nobody doubts the dedication of most health professionals or doubt that they have a challenging job, but the hysteria that accompanies any criticism of the NHS is totally unrealistic. The structure of the health service in England is a cross between a national joke and the smell of ass. There are literally hundreds of provider trusts, commissioning bodies and support organisations all competing for a slice of the pie and that have vastly overpaid crowds of business managers, finance officers and chief accountable officers, some of whom "earn" £150k/annum. Commissioning is now allegedly in the hands of GPs who often don't have a clue what they are doing and, according to the BMJ, 2/3s of whom feel totally disengaged by the process. Meanwhile there is a crisis in GP recruitment and primary care is becoming an exercise in collecting QOF points for some practices.

I probably sound as though I'm unsympathetic to the doctors who a threatening to strike but at heart I'm not. I would rather have a cigarette put out on me than work in my local trust (which is so bad it's under a "success regime"). What does grind my gears is the reason why the NHS is under resourced; it wouldn't be if there weren't so many incompetant hangers on in senior positions who have been promoted according to the Peter Principal. In the meantime perhaps it would be worth recognising that most NHS workers have enjoyed the luxury of substantive and secure employment through the worst recession since the 1930s. Also, thanks to Agenda for Change their salaries actually ain't that bad.

Go for it MN, flame away.

im a hospital consultant, and feel very worried about our juniors - the contract being imposed is unfair and not workable. it is particularly unfair on those working part time. they work so hard but with this contract they will have to work even more weekends for less money and often will have significant pay cuts. many are thinking of leaving, or moving abroad. its so sad. i therefore support them 100%. i just wish more strikes weren't necessary. i wish theresa may had got rid of hunt when she reshuffled. i don't understand why she's supporting him

I support the JDs in their fight not to have a contract that disadvantages women imposed upon them. I do not support the proposed industrial action (which has now been called off, thankfully).

A 5 day strike, at ridiculously short notice, was outrageous. It would have had a huge impact on hundreds of thousands of people. Many left in pain for weeks and months longer than they needed to be. In fact many still will be, as operations cancelled may not be able to be rescheduled.

I don't know what the answer is. Harming patients through industrial action is not it.

I see very little support from the consultant body this time. The #consultantcover hashtag is noticeable by its absence from Twitter. The Royal colleges have come out against the strike, and the GMC spoke in very strong words this morning about potential harm resulting from industrial action. The vote within the BMA was rumoured to be 16/14. The professional support isn't there, and as soon as the JDs strike for 5 days they will lose the media battle as well, as more and more people know someone personally affected by it.

tatertots I already do, and chances are so do you. Most motor mechanics earn half of what a junior doctor does for a not disimilar basic skill set. One group takes complex and potentially fatal issues, forms a diagnosis, and takes action to rectify it. The other takes home £23k.

You can't have a 7 day NHS without having the same cover on reception, in the offices, in the pharmacy, porters, radiologists, etc etc.

Forcing junior doctors to work for less pay at the weekends will not deliver a 7 day NHS

i wish theresa may had got rid of hunt when she reshuffled. i don't understand why she's supporting him

This baffles me. I'm not picking on you lu9months, just wanted to use it as an example. I hear this sort of comment all the time. Hunt is the focus of all the public vitriol here.

And yet he was clearly backed wholeheartedly by Cameron and now May. She didn't reshuffle because she is in favour of what he is doing, as was Cameron, as are most of the cabinet. Hunt is doing a sterling job of deflecting negative attention away from the PM. Of course they will keep him around. Whether he goes or not when this is resolved I don't know. They might keep him around to sort the consultant contract (which is next, I believe).

It's not about money. It's about the fact they're overstretched and the new contract will stretch limited resources even more. And there has been cuts - contracts have been handed out to private companies and there is a quiet move towards a restructure of privatisation.

The flow chart sums it up.

September's strike has been cancelled. October, November and December's are still on unless Jeremy Hunt puts his big boy pants on and gets back to the negotiating table.

YABU.I have been both fortunate (in my dealings with committed professionals) and very unfortunate (cancer) to be involved with the NHS recently.
The strike might cancel my urgent operation, it could, realistically, be life or death.
At this stage, I don't know if it will be cancelled as a result of the strike action, but I support the JD's 100%.

I have a DD who wants to study medicine so have followed the issues closely. Women are usually the ones that require career breaks and part time working, and we are at risk of losing committed individuals and having a medical profession that is further male dominated and orientated.
I have witnessed the distortions that "targets" bring to good health care, and a cull of the top end career health managers that exist only to monitor these targets and produce these statistics, whilst returning medical decisions to trained clinicians, would inject much needed cash into the business end of the health service. I would not then give them golden handshakes and reemploy them the next day as business consultants in the same role.
The Tories try to run the NHS as a business and that has been there approach to the juniors.

You can't have a 7 day NHS without having the same cover on reception, in the offices, in the pharmacy, porters, radiologists, etc etc

This. Hunt has taken a strategic strike into the middle of the NHS knowing full well that the ripples go right through the foundations.

Someone mentioned tube drivers and train drivers and air traffic controllers so out of curiosity I googled their salaries. I'm actually flabbergasted that these three jobs actually earn more than doctors. In fact tube drivers starting pay is more than a specialist registrar gets prior to becoming a consultant.

So even if it was just about pay (which anyone who can read knows it isn't) are we really living in a society where we are happy to pay more money to a train driver than a highly skilled doctor??

Air traffic control training pay is about £18k.

The BMA actually supported the new contract a few months ago, so why now have they decided to demand every Junior Doctor take a week off work, every month, until the end of the year?

The General Medical Council have declared that Doctors will be struck off if they harm patients.

Strike cancelled.

THIS is insane. Can anyone tell me what specific line in the new contract is so bad that Doctors decide to do something that will kill people?

This is a hard left union, trying and now failing, to bring down a government. Seriously are people that gullible?

The following is taken from the NATS website l. This also states that training to be an air traffic controller takes around 12 months.

Once you’ve completed and passed all of your training (college and unit), your salary will rise to £32,522 – £36,247*, again depending on the unit.

On your third anniversary of passing training, subject to validation, your salary will rise to £46,461 – £51,781 plus shift pay of £5,543. With increments, you could potentially earn over £100,000 (inclusive of shift pay) at our Swanwick Centre and Heathrow Tower.*

Seems like a pretty sweet deal to me for only 1 years worth of training.

To be clear I don't begrudge train drivers, air traffic controllers or anyone else their pay. All I'm saying is that if anyone deserves a decent pay then it should be our doctors.

Maths, a few points:

1. The BMW never supported this contract. Their position was neutral, and it went to ballot, where it was rejected by members.

2. See previous posts about how the entire contract is unsafe for patients.

3. Doctors have not decided to do something to 'kill people'. To say so is patently absurd. Patient death goes down during strike action.

4. For doctors to be considered militant and hard left, the government must be very far right. Think about that.

read the posts up thread maths mum. If you have a 12 inch pizza and divide it into 5 that's fine. If you divide it into 7 then the slices are smaller. If you put more people on at the weekend (with lower pay) and don't increase the size of the pizza then you will have fewer people available on each day.
Also there is NO POINT IN A 7 day NHS IF YOU DONT INCREASE ALL THE ADMIN STAFF THAT GO ALONG WITH THAT. I cannot understand why the BMA are not doing a lot more to get this point across.
I'm a GP in Scotland. We could run a 7 day service but instead of having 5 doctors on every morning we would have 4 or 3 so same number of appointments but spread over 7 days then we would need to pay staff to work at weekend and pay more in electricity and gas bills then who takes the blood samples to the lab so we can't do bloods.

*bma

I'm obviously on my phone.

I'm finding it rather irksome to be repeatedly correcting the same incorrect assertions.

Rattusn.BMW haha.

I was talking to a friend who is a JD the other day - not about the strike but part time work (both on mat leave). She has had friends who until they turn up on their first day of a rotation know they have a part time contract but not what days they will be working or even the location of the hospital in some trusts, so sorting childcare out is impossible or prohibitively expensive.

This is an horrendous way to treat employees - I am sure it happens in other jobs as well, and I know people struggle on zero hour contracts but it really does shock me how they are treated in what gives the impression of being more professional than that. My part time days in my public sector job can be changed year on year but I am given 4-5 months notice.