Are junior docs really only on £14.09 per hour?

[yawningmorning]

That is so low.

I've seen the headline that you can earn more per hour working in pret.

No wonder they are striking.

Do you have a source for that? And why can’t people who have struggled end up with good grades?

What irritates me about that pret advert, apart from the snobbery, is that any doctor actually quitting medicine to work at pret is still going to be on minimum wage after 5 years whereas whilst initial salary may not be great for doctors, it rises quickly. Otherwise it would be baristas living in the nice big houses round here.

It’s not a race to the bottom though

Oh yes I earned more in my casual job throughout medical school that I did on starting as a dr, although obviously working much more. That never really bothered me as it is the norm in fields with high entry requirements and it always surprised me when people were annoyed that cleaners earned more. Why not? That’s how markets work. And I didn’t trade my job to be a cleaner despite the money, which I could have done. Just as any teacher - especially those who can get into Oxford - can jump ship to medicine should they choose.

It’s true, pay per hour is awful for newly qualified doctors.

Other issue that I think are legitimate reasons to complain

• doctors in training are offered a job via a central process. If that means they have to move house, so be it. They might need to move every year if unlucky, and live in places they have no interest in being, with all the expense that involves.
• they are in training for potentially over ten years, depending on their role. This isn’t 21-year-olds, this is people in their thirties or older, with families and personal responsibilities.
• Doctors pay for their own exams, their own GMC registration, their royal college fees. Hundreds a year at least, sometimes very much more.

I qualified in 2011. My first year of training, when pay was better than it is now, I broke even. Every penny was spent on rent, petrol, GMC fees. If I had qualified in 2022, I would be living on credit cards now. Is that fair? My degree took 5 years of hard work and when I graduated I worked like a dog, loads of unpaid hours to make sure everyone was ok.

If the NHS is going to survive we need UK trained doctors to stay here and take up training jobs. They don’t want to, and I don’t blame them.

You don't want the best people looking after your health? Or operating on you? Rather, only those who will put up with shit pay and conditions?

This thinking is very short sighted.

A lot of Nurses earn £20 per hour after 30 years in the service. Often with degrees and MSc’s. The really good ones who sort things out and make sure the show is on the road and manage a lot of other people.

Doctors and Nurses used to get more support with Accomodation and meals/social clubs and parking was free. I see pay deals being struck for Nurses but giving uplifts to those in lower pay scales.

I think Doctors should be paid fairly but have never agreed that NHS should let Doctors do private work.

I’m also striking this week. Solidarity with junior doctors today.

Why does mumsnet always fall for divide and conquer?

What is this bizarre idea that thinking a doctor should be paid more than a barista or a bin man is 'snobbery'? The idea that working incredibly hard over many years to earn demanding qualifications shouldn't mean that you earn any more than someone doing a job you can start straight out of school?

Is it a legacy of Gove's 'people have had enough of experts'? Are the people trotting this out communists? What is going on?

Ready to get my tiny violin out. Sick and tired of all the complaints, yes being a doctor is a hard job but so are plenty of other jobs. Junior doctors make above average, at the very very beginning of their career in a job that pays six figures pretty soon and has the option for extraordinarily expensive private work.

Don't forget that junior doctors are trainees still at that point, also they have a really good trajectory and can earn a great deal when they're fully qualified (consultant level) in private practice. I work alongside doctors and they're pretty well paid even as trainees after just a few years.
Baristas however will not reach those heights of salaries.
I'm not saying they should be paid more or less etc, but actually their salaries go up quickly.
Working conditions however are not good!

I agree.

The hourly rate of the junior doctor is for their contracted hours, it does not cover the hours of overtime they ‘have’ to work due to lack of available staff at hand over, the hours and finances put in to study for exams, and all the registration fees and insurance costs. Doctors are asked to move hospitals every 6months and sometimes even area every two years. My husband has finally qualified as a hospital consultant, but we now have huge debts to repay for the cost of his training (not student debts).

This salary isn’t for people who have done 7 years training. When they’ve done 7 years training they are on 39k. It is definitely comparable to all the other professions quoted.
The quoted salary is a training wage in year 6, with a higher wage in year 7. FY1 and FY2 doctors are very much still in training.

Lots of jobs? I was replying to the post that mentioned a) teachers and b) barristers.

I don't know anything about barristers pay.

Also do you really want someone treating you who is knackered from working all the hours for £14 an hour as there are massive shortages of staff in the NHS due to policies that this government brought about?

I'm a fully qualified mental health practitioner on not much more than that. I have had enough and thinking about going to work in a supermarket, less stress.

They cannot recruit or retain in my role as it's stressful for low pay.

I don't think it's snobbish to think that doctors should earn more than baristas. They do, by a very long way, and I don't see anyone objecting to that or thinking it should be otherwise. I do think it's snobbish to find the most high-paid barista you can, to compare it to a partial picture of the lowest pay a doctor ever gets and then to have a tone of disgust that it is ever possible that someone could briefly earn more in pret. I support doctors but a) I think they have a conditions problem, not a pay one (I think the same about teachers) and b) I think insisting that they are clearly just worth more than any other job is really alienating and counterproductive.

Just that it’s far more outrageous that new teachers earn below minimum wage per hour than it is that junior doctors earn 1.5x minimum wage per hour

What a ridiculous statement. Do you really think doctors, and lots of other professions, don’t work extra hours too? And often without the generous holidays to recover and catch up with admin work? Teachers very much do not get paid below minimum wage and if you are using hours worked to try and prove that point then you have to do so for all other professions too, taking into account holidays.

OH WELL THAT'S ALL RIGHT THEN. Fucksake, do better, expect more from life than the scraps the Tories throw us.

The thing is they are! And this is why you can’t get a GP appointment or adequate care at hospital. We want medicine, along with other core professions, to be attractive careers that offer good working conditions to attract the right people.

I don't think it's snobbish to think that doctors should earn more than baristas. They do, by a very long way, and I don't see anyone objecting to that or thinking it should be otherwise

I don't think you've been reading the threads then.

They're not going to work at pret, though, are they?

Also, I expect more than teachers and doctors having to work all the hours because there are not enough of them.

The advert comparing salary to a pret worker was not particularly helpful.
I hope this strike does lead to better pay and conditions for reasons people have already discussed above.
There are real concerns about doctors quitting or emigrating during their training. Before you say - well their choice - if not happy - leave, think what that means for the NHS’s workforce and sustainability.