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

Care workers should be paid more for the work they do looking after the elderly. OK it's not ontology or surgery but holistically a care worker can add similar levels of life satisfaction to the elderly and infirm. We should look at this that are suffering from the cost of living crisis first and those whose career paths will mean they stay on a relatively static wage. Care workers may not have the luxury of striking depending on how draconian their employers are.

@Bumpitybumper

Seems to be a bottomless pit of money for stuff the tories want

@newstart1234

Well, yes.

Thats what is happening

Doctors are leaving and we can't replace them

And then people moan that they can't get treatment.

@Bumpitybumper

Fair point well made. I do have sympathy for nurses as for the majority their career path will not result in the salaries you mention. Additionally I feel there are those on the lowest bands that are in dire conditions due to the cost of living crisis. These deserve priority.

I think conditions do need improving but increased pay does not solve this; more staff will. As you suggest there are plenty willing to embark on careers in medicine despite the onerous conditions and we would be doing ourselves a disservice by not accepting the reason for this is ultimately medicine is a well paid career.

if we do have a socially minded spirit in the NH S do we accept those on the top accept lower pay rises than those at the bottom?

I don't think the medical profession as a whole can carry the argument for more pay to the public; what they want to see is more staff and a better service.

I’m not a statistician. I’m speaking from my personal experience and someone who knows a hell of a lot of doctors. I never claimed to have some kind of log book of how many are leaving. I can tell you that not a single GP practice in my area has a full staffing of doctors. I can tell you that every rota in my local hospital is running on 50-70% of the required doctors. I’m extremely worried about the state of our health service. People cannot get GP appointments. Doctors are burning out.

Frankly I don’t wish to be the last one standing when all my colleagues have left. I’m still here in the nhs working because that’s what I wanted to do. I actually do overall love being a doctor despite the negatives and don’t particularly want leave unless I feel I have to… which I am fast approaching.

I decided to train as a doctor 10 years ago. I did not know that in that time our pay would be what it is now. I didn’t realise than in that time floods of doctors would leave the health service. Neither did the other doctors who “chose” this.

“less people stuck in hospital better for doctors” shows you have never actually worked in a hospital. Obviously these people use minimal amounts of doctors time. We spend most of our time with the sickest patients, not people that are simply waiting for carers. However I do think carers should be much better paid than they are. I worked as a carer before I went to medical school, it’s an extremely difficult job that should be much better paid than it is. It isn’t a race to the bottom.

@mids2019

You keep saying this

'think conditions do need improving but increased pay does not solve this; more staff will'

And keep ignoring the fact that we can't get more staff

If there are plenty of doctors why do we have a staffing crisis right now with poor conditions?

If we have plenty of doctors why do we need more?

If you Google doctors leaving the NHS the first top 5 hits are articles saying 4 in 10 junior doctors are leaving /intending to leave

news.sky.com/story/record-numbers-of-nhs-doctors-are-resigning-one-senior-consultant-tells-us-why-she-had-to-leave-12815928

@Botw1
There isn't a bottomless pit of money for anything and if Labour get elected then they too will grapple with this problem.

We need sensible discussions about how the NHS can realistically be funded and resourced going forwards. It was never intended to be what it has grown to be and it is clearly unsustainable in ita current guise, Tories or no Tories.

Giving in to pay demands will only reduce the amount of public money left to spend on vital life saving treatments and training new doctors (heavily subsidised by the government even if the students fees). Too many people on this forum like to be #kind and are desperate to say that they think every cause (immigrants, food banks, nurses, teachers, junior doctors, the disabled etc etc) should be better funded. Of course that's what everyone would ideally do, but most people when they grow up realise that budgeting and economics don't work like that. Spend your money on one thing and you can't afford something else. I wish we could have meaningful discussions about this instead of just banging on about Tories and inefficiencies, which whilst undoubtedly problematic, they are not the root cause of the problem.

Whatever the “market rate” is, which given the make up of the industry probably needs to be global(ish).

It doesn’t even have to be wholly salary that makes the package worthwhile. Numerous good ideas on this thread fit into that, from capped hours to the covering of fees and training.

@Bumpitybumper

The economy is nothing like a household budget.

And yes. If we want decent public services and a decent society then we need to pay for it.

That includes tackling wealth inequality via taxation

Name changed for this as you can see!

I’m now a consultant and I support the juniors in their industrial action. There are a few points that come up repeatedly on threads like this.

it’s a vocation so you should just get on with it. Well this is the stick that is used repeatedly to beat us, persuade us to work extra hours, accept below average pay rise for the last 14 years. If you go into it just for money then you won’t last long but the goodwill that has kept things going for years is eroding. Rapidly. There comes a point you can’t push people further and I think for the juniors that this is it.

Junior doctor is a slightly misleading term. I was a junior doctor for 13 years. I would be the one operating on you in the middle of the night. With a junior doctor anaesthetist after you’d been seen by a junior doctor in A and E.

the cost of training often used as justification of tax payers expense includes junior doctors salaries while they are in training. A lot of their studying is done in their own time.

finally the expenses. You have to do exams to continue your job or you get failed. The exams are expensive at £500-1500 each. I had to do 4 over the years. And pay £800 for access to an online portfolio to prove I was learning while working. And pay the GMC £400 a year, £800 to become a consultant. £400 a year indemnity. These are all mandatory. My parking at the moment is £600 a year.

and it’s not a guaranteed progression. Contracts are typically 2-6 years depending on stage and are a competitive process. It’s national recruitment so you could be offered a place in Newcastle. But you live in Oxford. If you don’t take that place you can’t have any job on that training scheme that year. It’s hugely disruptive. And Deaneries cover huge areas. You can work in Dover for a year then get sent to Guildford for a year. You have no say and get about 2 months notice if you are lucky.

so I understand why they are striking and that’s before we look at the conditions they are working under. I came so close to leaving so many times and would be off to Canada if I didn’t have commitments here. I’m also first generation to university from a state school, we aren’t all public school educated.

Final note. The new contract I went on strike for in 2016 was acknowledged to be detrimental to those who worked part time ie mainly women and those with caring commitments or disabilities. But it was imposed anyway and that was deemed acceptable collateral damage.

@Botw1

I agree with nursing staff there is a crisis but as I have said previously there is enough supply of would be medics if we fund the training places. We could train more medics but we have to accept without a limitless budget there may be consequences for overall salary; it will be up to the medical profession to make a judgment on that. I just can't square a crisis in recruitment for medics with the fact many brilliant applicants are being rejected from medical school. The bottle neck is training places which need to be paid for; prioritising the training numbers may mean there is less in the pot for salary increases for medics early on in their career.

I think the other issue is that the people who are now junior doctors has changed a great deal.

Gone are the wealthy whose parents could put them through medical school. Help with house deposits and financially prop them up. Many medical students are now women (over 50%). From a wider spectrum of socioeconomic backgrounds. Doctor pay has been too low for a long time, but doctors used to feel valued and appreciated by the public. And this did make up for a great deal. As we can see very clearly this is no longer the case.

Absolutely this

No I haven't ever worked in a hospital. I nearly went for medicine under family pressure but I knew I couldn't take the night shifts. It was slightly tongue in cheek, I know waiting ambulances are a big problem and 1 in 10 people in hospital don't need to be there but in a care setting. The impression I get is that the doctors right now are in the trenches and struggling to see the bigger picture. Sorry :/ Doesn't help that lots can get a GP appointment (NO not the doctors fault At all) but it doesn't help the sympathy vote.

My cleaner is on more than that

@mids2019

if we trained more medics

But we're not.

And even if we did then those doctors being in jobs is 10 plus years away.

I mean you can keep denying the facts but it's not really achieving anything

People are already being subjected to the highest level of taxation since the 1940s and we should be very cautious about raising it further still without getting to grips with where the money should be going and what we are trying to achieve. The economy is like a household budgets in some ways and without economic growth (that unchecked wage inflation will not promote) then increasing taxation is the main way the government can raise more money.

If you want to tackle wealth inequality then junior doctors are nowhere near the least wealthy in society so wouldn't be helped by such policies. Also not to mention the huge irony, that you can subsidise junior doctors for the first decade of their career to find they then enter the top 5% of earners as consultants and become the very wealthy people that you are desperately trying to tax into submission. Make it make sense.

@newstart1234

You don't think it helps that people can't see a GP but you're answer to their not being enough GPS is for doctors to leave?

Thats logic for you.

@Onstrikein2016

Isn't the really harsh economic reality though that if someone wouldn't want the current pay and conditions of being a medic there would be someone else that would actually jump at the chance? I made the point about the completion for medical school places and it would seem even if a few high achievers decided not to enter the profession there would still be many that would. I think this a different situation to nurses. No one would argue that are many challenges to being a medic or doubt their professionalism but from a very basic point of view it is still realised that medicine is a lucrative career compared to many especially from a population basis.

I think the problem is getting sympathy from the public (tax payers) when although they are sympathetic to the problems in working conditions they are still acutely aware medics are well paid. Indeed in my circle of friends few know medics as they tend to live in a lot more desirable areas. Getting Joe Public to fully throw themselves behind juniors medics is a real challenge.

not all doctors are privately educated, very true, but there are a disproportionate number. I would suggest then that medicine is still a desirable middle class.career even with all the problems.

They can’t get an appointment as there are no doctors to see them! Part of the reason many are leaving is because we want to provide a good service. We don’t want people sat in corridors, or waiting days to see you to then walk in absolutely furious (and rightly so). We want to provide a good health service. But when you are 3 GPs and have 500 requests what do you do? You can only stretch yourself to a certain level. In my area at the moment if I refer someone to neurology, they will wait eighteen months to see a neurologist. 18 months to find out you may have MS. This is partly due to covid backlog, partly due to several consultant neurologists leaving. I have worked in such poor staffing that entire departments have had to close and divert patients to other hospitals as we do not have safe levels of staffing. The nhs is a ticking time bomb and brain drain is a huge component of that. Every other week I hear of another colleague who is moving to Australia

@mids2019

Strike action doesmt need public sympathy

@Bumpitybumper

No. It won't make sense to someone with your values. I doubt there is much point trying

I genuinely think it may just reach a point of “walk out until we are listened to”. In reality this is already happening as people immigrate

The harsh economic reality is doctors are leaving. It doesn’t matter if more people are happy to take their places. They leave too. They are highly trained professionals, who find out their worth is multiple times what they are paid in other parts of the world. It also applies to nurses.
you can’t choose to apply market forces to everything else then be upset when doctors and nurses leave for better pay and conditions.