Would you support a junior doctor strike?

[NC3435]

NC for this. To be clear, during the last strike, non training grade doctors were in hospitals etc as were consultants. Emergency work continued and A+E was functioning. The background to the dispute is that JDs want pay restoration to the levels in 2008/09 and the BMA has been attempting to engage with the government for a while without any acknowledgement. There is a staffing and retention crisis with more and more doctors leaving the country every year. Those of us still around are pretty burnt out from the last 2 years and things are getting worse - this includes patient care.

What job do you do then that you can state that with such certainty? I cam assure you that pay and conditions are significantly worse than they were 12 yrs ago

I would totally 100% support. Junior doctors deserve the pay restoration as well as an improvement in terms and conditions.

Why do we recruit people into a service that provides caring and health support to our population and then treat those people with no care or respect?

We have an ageing and ailing population, we need good doctors and nurses and if we don’t treat them properly and remunerate them correctly they will leave the profession or leave the country and then where will we be?

Come on people let’s give them our support.

I definitely support them.
They work so hard, for a pittance, often do many hours for free.
They are supposed to be in training, when in reality there is a serious amount of pressure on them to get an obscene amount of work done.
I cannot think of a job I would want less. I definitely wouldn't cope in the job.

Yes. I'll support my colleagues when they strike, and I hope that they'll support me when I do.

Yes support them 100% and the nurses too. Saw Rishi lying through his teeth on the news tonight, saying the Government are in talks with the Nursing unions - a claim totally refuted by the RCN. The Government are refusing to talk to them.

As a senior doctor, yes I would support the junior doctors striking. And I would urge anyone that has any concern about nhs staffing and retention to support them too.

Yep, support them totally. Last time they were out, took donuts to the the picket line of the hospital where I trained. Never seen a doctor who could resist a donut at any time of the day or night.

Yes definitely.

And I agree with this , too

I would urge anyone that has any concern about nhs staffing and retention to support them too.

Lots of junior doctors say they'll leave the profession if it goes badly, and they've already started.

I support all those who strike.

I. E
Train drivers, junior doctors and I really hope teachers do the planned strikes.

But I seriously hope that all the jobs striking at the moment DO NOT VOTE TORY IN AGAIN.

The root cause of this since 2010 is the Tories. If they strike and still vote Tory, then what is the point???

Austerity was an idealogy. A failed idealogy that most economists debunked. Countries that spent (espescially on infrastructure, education, training and research) out of the 2008/9 economic meltdown have done a hell of a lot better. Countries that tried austerity ditched it.

We cannot continue with these broken economic policies. Small state will kill the NHS. The shortsightness over social care wastes billions, that the NHS is expected to pick up. The shortsightness over social housing wastes billions when social housing could have been built since 2010. The short-sightedness over the current refugee and asylum policy is currently wasting billions.

All this waste could be channeled into the wages that public sector need and deserve to be paid. It could be channelled into a great NHS, a great social services, a great education etc and etc.

Thats before we get to the recent billions wasted by Truss and the pandemic, billions magically gone (and I'm not talking about furlough).

So those who support strikes and those who will be striking, please do not vote Tory in again.

@FixTheBone says x 100

The issue with doctors having to retire early is because of changes in tax and pensions that mean that the most senior doctors (and even some who haven't been consultants that long) are faced with a situation where their tax bill is so high that they are effectively paying to work, not being paid to work.

Recruitment and retention are a fucking nightmare. We have to improve things for them. I support the junior doctors, even though it will make work for me.

💯

I'm having to reduce hours so that I can afford to work. Suddenly getting landed with a 10k tax bill for money I haven't even received is not sustainable.

Yes, I would also support better management of shifts , eg make them so that they follow a natural cycle and not so they are all over the place and screw up your body clock as much as it does.

I would also improve admin and IT. Especially IT I would spend a lot on improving data systems

Junior doctors are fully qualified. Most doctors in the UK are junior doctors and are in their 30's, 40's and 50's. A single first year junior doctor has the responsibility of many patients across 6-12 wards during a night shift with a senior available over the phone. They have a lot of responsibility.

Doctors are technically always "training" and "practicing", the term "junior doctor" is very misleading.

My brother was training to be a cardiologist. Took him 24 gruelling years from medical school. A year before he was no longer going to be a "junior doctor" and finally reach consultant level he quit as he said he could not uproot his family another time and financially it wouldn't work out as his partner would need to give up her job. He loved his job and had a pHD in his specialty. He really wanted to improve the lives of patients with heart failure. Being a doctor is hard and there is no time for family. You don't really get a choice in where you will live too, that's tough.

100% support them striking.

Yes, I would support it. People have only just began to realise how bad things actually are in the NHS due to government cuts, it’s been propped up by good will for years. And the good will is starting to make everybody I’ll.

I don't support strikes in any profession. I support the right to opinions & stating them but not by bringing workplaces to a standstill.

If you have a non-monopoly employer, you can just vote with your feet, and employers will put wages up if they want to attract and retain staff.

With a monopoly employer like the NHS, pay is set by the government and if you don’t like it, your options are a) leave the profession or b) leave the country.

Plenty of doctors (and nurses) are doing both of those things, which is why we have a recruitment crisis in the NHS at the moment. But for whatever reason, the government doesn’t really seem to care if the NHS falls apart or not (wonder why). Striking is an attempt to draw public attention to the problem.

If an individual employer refuses to put up wages, can’t retain staff, and ends up going under, so what, that is the employer’s problem to fix. If the NHS refuses to put up wages, can’t retain staff, and ends up collapsing, that is a huge problem for all of us.

I would 100% support their strike! Their pay is appalling for the responsibility they have, the hours they work, the family time lost to not wanting to leave their patients who are critically ill, at the end of their shift and not being paid for it, and lack of training that is happening for them due to many senior staff leaving the profession or being so short staffed it is not possible to plan.

My son is a Junior doctor and I would urge any young person to seek a career anywhere else other than in medicine. The whole thing is s shitstorm and until Chief Executives of hospitals are trained in Medicine, I am afraid the realities of daily life in the hospitals of the UK will not be understood. Yes they are businesses and as such some acumen in that area is required but if you haven't had patients literally dying in front of you and being responsible for their care, the care of the family involved and the team around you, how can you ever truly understand what a hospital staff really needs?

Junior doctors keep our hospitals running at the moment and owing to the oath they take they will never all 'walk out' but we need to understand they need to be heard.