How much do you think junior doctors should be paid per hour

[Jill688]

you are being unreasonable - they should be paid £14/hr

you are not being unreasonable - they should be paid more

you see this has touched a nerve becuase it remeinds me so much of my experience at medical school.

my mum (working class left school at 16) bought me my first “professional outfit” for my medical school interview (when I was 17) that and the train fair to the interview (in London from up north) were a big stretch for her. It was my only smart outfit and I wore it with my slight too small old school shoes from y11 to my interview feeling very proud. I also wore it to my first “clinical day” (when I was 18 and anyway from home in a city for the first time) to find it wasn’t suitable because I couldn’t roll the sleeves up as they didn’t have buttoned cuffs and got well told off buy a nurse on the ward and sent away until I could buy some “suitable” clothing (they also took objection to the length of my skirt)I felt like I had failed some test I didn’t know was a thing.

I also didn’t wear smart clothes my first meeting with my tutor in hospital (an academic consultant)- I wore jeans a t shirt and trainers because as an 18yr old from a background where no one had been to uni or worked in a professional job I had no idea that this would even be a requirement for meeting with a tutor. fortunately he realised that I was completely out of my comfort zone and enquired very gently if I had “work clothes” - sadly he didn’t explain that the “work clothes” needed rollable sleeves and pencil skirts were a no no!

(I worked in medical school (interestingly enough as an barista then waitress) apart from the 6 months before finals because I had to eat. However the medical school told us that employment was recommended against and would not be taken as a mitigating factor if one failed exams or as a reason not to be sent on pheriperal (50 mile away) placements - got fired from the coffee shop due to that. In my first weeks at uni I hadn’t yet found a job however and had had to spend my loan on things like train fairs, halls, textbooks, a laptop!!! (Big deal in 2005) and a stethoscope - I was totally broke for a long time.

Also the consultant is not the students soon to be “boss”. The students is paying £9K/yr for the consultant to teach them. One could well say that the student is the employer of the consultant in this situation. Not saying the consultant actually sees any of that money but a student has paid for the privilege of meeting that consultant - the massive fees mean that this is much more transactional relationship than it was back in the day.

And again we’re not taking junior doctors here we’re taking medical student s - medical school is where teens go to learn how to be doctors/professionals. They are going to mess up and make errors and good tutors and lecturers guide them to improve not judge them for not being the finished article at 18.

and I’m sorry you had to buy your own scrubs for covid (me to) - more evidence that the working conditions are shit - individual HCPs shouldn’t be having to prop up the NHS’s infection control system at their own expense. did you know you can claim the tax back on them and any other work uniform related expenses?

@WaitingForEgg

Half of the stuff you've mentioned there is what many non doctors do, like study, work everywhere and learn complex computer systems. Except they don't publicly whinge about it.

The other stuff about pay and respect. Speak to any engineer and they'll tell you that's exactly the same in the UK. Elsewhere, I'd be viewed in a similar category as a doctor and paid accordingly (more closely to doctors in fact). Rates have stagnated for the last 15 years. Not much difference except we don't have issues with pensions where I might be forced to retire early (what a problem to have!).

I've had to set up my own business to earn what I feel I'm worth here but others aren't so fortunate.

BUT I'll give you working conditions for sure and no NHS worker should put up with it. Maximum sympathy and support in this respect. In fact I'm surprised you all put up with it. 13 hours without a toilet break. I'd give your management an option where I'd piss/shit in his/her office or in the toilet like a civilized human being.

What good is a union if they can't fight for this kind of thing. Chocolate teapot springs to mind and I find it odd that in all this, I've never read a bad word said about them. Yet in my lifetime they seem to have done sweet FA.

I also think your exams should be covered as your ongoing costs but that applies to all critical qualifications in society.

You have been forced to move 100s of miles multiple times with no choice whatsoever?!

Apart from the military no I cannot think of jobs that require this. These moves are not optional you realise? I have lived in 4 areas of the uk including the south of England and Scotland.

i don’t think you understand my point. Every ward, department, hospital runs completely differently. How long do you work until you feel settled in a job? We move every 4 months. We often get NO training on these computer systems, and delays in our time cost lives.

Yes we are entitled to “whinge”. I really hope you do not require medical care in the near future, you may struggle to find it

Our union has changed a lot since the 2016 strikes. They have realised no one cares about “saving the nhs”, they need to ask for something concrete. We will continue to walk out until we are listened to.

The UK pays their doctors £14/hour??? A first-year midwife in new Zealand gets £15.93 (NZD$31.17), and NZ is a known low-wage country!

But we just have to accept it! And stop whinging!!

how dare we complain! Don’t we know plenty of people earn less! 🙄

These same people will be complaining they can’t get a GP appointment and the A&E wait is 20 hours. “Sorry mrs smith we don’t have an orthopaedic surgeon to do your hip repair. The British public decided they were all whingers so they left to work in Australia… I could supply you with some poorly sized crutches however…”

@nocoolnamesleft sorry paediatrics, anaesthetics and ED excluded from my rant! Have been the peads sho at small DGH about 6 yrs ago (used to be peads before deciding neonates was not for me) and would never have dreamed of calling the consultant out of hours for a cannula (I got pretty good at scalp ones - once getting one in an anaesthetist had failed to do - still a point of pride) but yes the peads consultants were there teaching - actually they were filling gaps in the Reg (senior junior for non medics) rota because were so bloody short of doctors the consultants were having to work as juniors long term (also a reason I jumped ship - no desire to be working as a reg when I’m 70) - thank you for doing so!

@ArdeteiMasazxu we talk about wages in hourly rates becuase that is how we are paid. Our payslips come as x number of hours at y rate (and for an Fy1 y rate between the hours of 7am-9pm is £14.09/hr. We do not receive a yearly salary/12 paid monthly. We are not SALARIED in that sense. We don’t completely have varied hours per month either just to make it complicated. We change posts (and frequently employer) every 4-6months. For each post they add up the predicted hours you will work over the 4-6 months. This is split into hours between 7-9pm and 9-7am multiple that by the day rate and night rate respectively and then add on a “lump sum supplement” if you work frequent weekends. This pay is then averaged out per month. Of course pay months don’t align with the actual months you work in the rotation so you don’t know what you’re going to be paid each month until your payslip turns up. The “ annual salary” quoted is simply 40x52xday rate. It is possible (but I never have heard off it becuase they want maximum hours from everyone) for a “full time” doctor to be paid less than the annual quoted salary if they were for example working 38hrs a week between the hours 7-9 and “only” working 1 weekend in nine

All this moving employer 4-6monthly also means that your almost never off the “emergency” tax code either which makes massive dents in take home (although I appreciate you do get the tax back in the end and this is t a doctor only issue). But to reiterate we are not paid a yearly salary with the reassurance of knowing what we are being paid each month. Our pay peaks and spikes throughout the year like any other hourly employee.

@ArdeteiMasazxu sorry for going on. Realised I had forgot an important point. When they work out the average hours for the 4-6months they don’t work out your individual hours if you are a full timer (they do for less than full timers) but the average hours of all the doctors on that roster. So you may well work 6 weekends but only be paid for five (and the other way round). The clever rota coordinator can manipulate these averages in such a way that everyone feels they are hard done by by tricks such as arranging when mandatory off days are taken. They can also change the roster to cut hours and so pay with just six weeks notice - if you end up making a fuss about working conditions then this may well be done to you!

Their ‘bottom’ is after 5/6 years studying.

I would say 40k start, rising incrementally year by year. The more experienced they get, the more money and an 8 hour shift.

@Qazwsxefv . When they work out the average hours for the 4-6months they don’t work out your individual hours if you are a full timer (they do for less than full timers) but the average hours of all the doctors on that roster. So you may well work 6 weekends but only be paid for five (and the other way round). The clever rota coordinator can manipulate these averages in such a way that everyone feels they are hard done

I didn't know this, I thought the banding generally benefited people. See, this is the sort of thing the strikes should be publicising. Focusing on (starting, minimum) hourly rate just winds people up.

@Alexandra2001 I doubt you ve been anywhere near a Hospital as a HCP.

Doubt it all you like, I have 10 years service and a DP who's a staff nurse, so plenty real life experience of working in the NHS. Absolutely no anti-nurse sentiment from me, the real scandal is ANPs prescribing and managing episodes of clinical care independently for a band 6! Doctors work under direction of a consultant (legally), other HCPs are independent practitioners. I found out a few years ago that my indemnity insurance is more expensive than a registrar's.

I'm not saying doctors don't work hard, they do. But I think their pay rises should be in line with AfC.

No I've not moved hundreds of miles but I've moved about quite a lot and know what it's like to be the new person in a completely different company every 12-18 months. I did this over 10 years as a contractor. I just crack on and actually, it's something that you get used to and should make you better at dealing with new/uncomfortable surroundings. I'm guessing this is something that is designed to improve your ability in this area but you see it as negative.

I guess we're all different but I'm not necessarily talking about myself but lots of other jobs where people move about or work away a lot as required.

Software training is often a myth. I've not been trained much in my entire career as most employers call this 'on the job training'.

Yes we are entitled to “whinge”. I really hope you do not require medical care in the near future, you may struggle to find it

Classy. As I said, you have an absolutely valid complaint about working conditions but the rest just sounds like a whinge and normal for other industries.

Our union has changed a lot since the 2016 strikes. They have realised no one cares about “saving the nhs”, they need to ask for something concrete. We will continue to walk out until we are listened to.

Imo, that should say the government doesn’t care about saving the NHS, because they are a wealthy elite, who can afford private medical care; and are leaving the NHS to fail, so the population cries out for a change - then they and their mates can make a killing, because they are sitting on the boards of private providers (Americans) poised to take over; and get their hands on the NHS data on patients for free!

Anyone else, especially the poor stand to lose out in an American system, and should care about the NHS - because that’s where we are heading, not a European mutual insurance system! However, until there is a general election, what can the population do about it?

Maybe these young doctors should have pips on a lanyard denoting years of experience. Their pay should increase each year also. They deserve more respect from patients and administration.

After all the proposed salary rises are implemented teachers in Scotland will have a starting salary of 38k. I think that is right and do 1st year junior doctors should probably start on 43-44k

@juniordoctor If this was ever true (giving strong Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen vibes), it would be a breach of every tenancy agreement now and the landlord would probably be breaking the law around HMOs. And there's one key thing you've forgotten to mention - your generation had free (as a house officer) or subsidised hospital accomodation on-site and free meals provided 24/7

Where to start. Yes, I do love MP, what a crime but all I wrote was true. Yes, I am ‘retired’, have been for a few years, pretty much immediately preCovid, which means I now work a desk job out of the system as opposed to a clinical facing role. Was Consultant hospital staff. Thanks for insisting I’m out of touch, not so as all my friends (Consultant level hospital) are still just hanging in there treading the boards and we catch up frequently. I’m also still in contact with many of those I used to work with in the UK.

I am in Aus and the ironic fact is that our conditions were so bad starting out that we were dying to get across to the UK which was utopia in comparison, and which I did at a point and worked there for many years. All your diatribe above with free accom and food doesn’t apply as we didn’t get that in Aus, that was UK. We did have one room with bunk beds at major hospitals where we would kip if we got lucky enough, nothing as flash at smaller rural as we also had to cycle around. As for all your bulldust about tenancy agreements, hilarious. Tenancy agreements back then were nothing like today, zero rules re sub letting and a simple case of visiting the real estate with that weeks rent and a form to state tenancy was swapping from one person to someone else (no approvals or fuss needed back then).

As for your 72hour week and overtime, I use that to demonstrate the gulf in expectations. We often worked around 72hours straight, hopeful of a tiny kip here and there in a bunk but more often than not didn’t get it. We were lucky to get 24hrs before returning for next shift and did it all again, on repeat, endlessly. And yes, very well aware this is no longer theoretically permitted. We did it without complaint or whinging as that’s just the way it was. People did have the odd quick bonk in the bunks though🤣. We accepted we had zero lives outside of this and wouldn’t have even dreamed of being able to attend family weddings etc.

In general people left it later to marry, there was not the expectation of having a domestic life as early as people expect this now. Most women didn’t have kids as it wasn’t considered compatible with the working conditions until you climbed out and progressed on. Was especially hard for women as had to work harder to prove yourself with basically all male consultants. People these days don’t think like that, they feel entitled to houses, kids etc although how with being shifted around I don’t know, but then it’s crying hard done by. I’m rare in that I have kids, left it late but no issues, most (not all) women of my gen I know didn’t have kids or slipped in one at a ripe age via ivf. I don’t know one man in my circles who married and started a family until early middle age once they were set up. It wasn’t practical to have them young when choosing this line of work and people accepted this but now the choice seems to be have it all much earlier or whinge.

I’ve not stated it’s just about money, I understand it’s not just the money but conditions but am pointing out that there is also an enormous gulf with expectations now as well and that’s the aspect I question.

There is a very big difference between moving jobs every 12-18 months and every 4 months I assure you. Medicine is not my first job. I worked other jobs beforehand and am not the snowflake you seem to think I am.

You think that calling half broken, fed up professionals who are fighting for fairness to keep our health service function “whingers” Is classy?! At the rate things are going there will NOT be a doctor to see you if you are unwell. This is a fact. The health service is crumbling and the public have absolutely no idea how bad it is.

If I’m honest threads like this one have just made me more sure I will not remain in the Uk long term. Democracy is not “whinging”, fighting for fair pay to enable women to stay in medicine is not “whinging”. Keeping pay low makes it more difficult for working class people to enter and remain in medicine. It should not be that you can only do specialty training if you have parents to help you pay your bills. You think that keeping pay down helps equality. It doesn’t. It makes medicine a career for the wealthy. People leave because they can’t afford exams to progress. People leave because they cannot afford their childcare bill.

We do not do a variety of jobs to make us better. You simply have no idea what you are talking about. You have never been a medic. You have never done our training, you have no idea

Something odd on Google before Xmas found four GPs I know that were listed as private. That's been removed.

I'm not sure how the private GP system works if it's online only I could be talking to a doctor between John o groats and lands end. So the GPs I know personally could be covering calls nationwide. They're seemingly too bashful to advertise locally.

So you’re slagging off UK doctors and you are Australian

@HoppingPavlova

so to be clear:

1. you last worked in Australia where juniors earn much more for less hours in the uk
2. junior doctor working conditions and pay were better in the uk in what the 1980s-1990s?
3. you left the country you trained in in search of a better life elsewhere I

all the juniors on this thread would probably agree that the uk working conditions and were better 20 years ago. They were better 5 years ago. They were pretty decent when I started working in the nhs 11 years ago. The whole fact of the campaign we want to go back to how it was. it’s a campaign for pay restoration to previous levels not a pay rise.

we want those very conditions you left aus for the uk for back in the day.

since you haven’t worked in the nhs for a while listen to the juniors currently working in it when they say it’s not good right now. I first worked in the nhs as an sho grade junior 10 years ago and I still do now. My pay was acceptable, my working conditions reasonable 10 years ago. It’s got worse way way worse recently.

and as for putting up and shutting up and doing the long hours you did “apprentice style” firstly your saying you didn’t do just l that - you left for pastures greener and secondly since covid the apprentice style training system that was slowly dying with the 2016 contract has completely collapsed. I haven’t seen a consultant in weeks in my work as it’s a junior run service - there isn’t allocated a consultant to supervise it. No one is supervising us day to day. 100-200 patients a week go through our service with no consultant being aware they exist (we’re an admission avoidance team so as the patients haven’t been admitted yet they haven’t been allocated a named consultant yet (clever how hospital management gets round the rules about supervision for juniors isn’t it) I have sometimes called the consultant on call for my speciality to be told no-one is available that day - unfilled roster gaps. My named clinical supervisor dosent work in the same hospital as me so she’s not providing any hands on supervsion either - not that she could give it since their not her patients)

In the last three years I have only worked in two departments/Gp practices the cqc (the hospital inspector incase they were past your day) considers good. Most places I am allocated
to work like my current one are “inadequate and unsafe” (grades gained before I started there). I’ve given evidence just this week to the ockenden inquiry about just how very very bad things were on my obs and Gynae job a year ago. Do you really think that I am receiving anything that might be considered to be “training” in departments that don’t provide safe care? Would you listen to anything you were “taught” by departments that have just been found responsible for causing deaths
due to their poor practice. I would say I’m better off doing the near exact opposite of what such departments do and teach. Rotating juniors were told by trust management that we were responsible for bringing in and showing the departments we rotate into good practice in documentation and team working. Specific junior doctor level posts called “patient safety fellows” were created to try and bring about postive change and were expected to create and Enact improvement projects to fix the issues. When the juniors are the ones being allocated the job of fixing the department issues the claim we’re apprentices falls down quite spectacularly.

You retired pre covid. Pre covid /pre Brexit the system was creaking but just about holding. Juniors weren’t on strike then (although we were in 2016). The system has since broken. I’d love to return to the nhs I worked in 10 or even five years ago - the one you worked in. It’s gone now so please stop saying we need to just put up with things becuase things used to be worse - they didn’t they were better and juniors are trying to get back to that.

Well I pay my cleaner £15phr
As much as I LOVE her, she's not saving any lives.

They should have badges with stars on, with the more experienced doctors having more stars.

I'm not saying doctors don't work hard, they do. But I think their pay rises should be in line with AfC

Why put them on a system which you ought to know is a discredited system?

Bottom line is a JD does many more years training and needs far more qualifications than a AHP/Nurse yet starting pay is, as an hourly comparison far less.

But as i ve said on many of these types of threads, folk are leaving, what you think they should be happy with is neither here nor there

Plus as we can all see today, strikes work.... just a short while ago, above 3.5% was inflationary and unaffordable... today its affordable, isn't inflationary and wont come out of existing budgets.

I personally think the Unions should have held out for more but maybe its a decent compromise for all?

pigalow27
After all the proposed salary rises are implemented teachers in Scotland will have a starting salary of 38k

Looks like £32,000 to me (Probationer)

www.nasuwt.org.uk/advice/pay-pensions/pay-scales/scotland-pay-scales.html