Doctors right to strike, should it be removed?

[DistinguishedSocialCommenator]

Hello
Several people within our families are doctors. Most started out wanting to care for people, but as time goes on, the reality of money, and spending comes into play for some.

PM Rishi Sunak in a tv interview partly balmed doctors strikes for failing to bring down hospital waiting lists. I rarely agree with a politician but in this case, I know he is right. EG, myself, my OH, one of our children and grandchildren have had their appointments cancelled because of strike impacts. Our children and grandchildren do have private healthcare but those do not cover pre-existing or you end up on the NHS with chorionic conditions.

Our police officers and armed forces personnel are not allowed to strike

AIBU to expect a no-strike agreement for doctors and possibly nurses. If agreed, give them 9 months' notice about no-strike agreements. I honestly believe hardly anyone would leave and those leaving would have possibly left the NHS anyway as some do and go to another country just like we get doctors from abroad. Their pay claims could be easily managed in the same way police/armed forces pay rises are managed as well of those MP's.

Failing to bring down hospital w/l lies with the present government and the growing of these waiting lists, the doctor's strikes have certainly made things a lot worse. We are regularly hearing on our news media about growing waiting lists and people waiting for urgent treatments and the waiting times in A&E departments etc

AIBU to feel that doctors should be made to sign a no-strike agreement with a few month's notice to have the no-strike agreement in place before next winter? Also, have a pay body set up like the ones our MP's enjoy.

But they don't.

It was removed from the police ages ago

I know, that doesn't mean I don't think that they should have it though.

Their pay claims could be easily managed in the same way police/armed forces pay rises are managed as well of those MP's

Police officers pay isn't managed by a committee like MPs pay is. It's negotiated, the same way doctors, train drivers etc do. Every year the police federation have to negotiate with the government for a pay rise, which has been well below inflation for at least the last ten years (apart from this last year when there was a better pay rise, likely because the government was predicting civil unrest). The Fed never (baring last year) manage to get a decent pay rise because they have nothing to use as a stick - officers can't strike and the govt know this, so what bargaining chip do the fed have?

Yes that is what they are doing.

@DistinguishedSocialCommenator
PM Rishi Sunak in a tv interview partly blamed doctors strikes for failing to bring down hospital waiting lists. I rarely agree with a politician but in this case, I know he is right

The waiting list has hardly risen since these strikes started, it was still over 7m.

Just as it was almost 4m pre Covid.

He is just blaming others for what is his parties fault plus why didn't he settle far earlier in the case of Nurses etc?
Why hasn't he settled the Jnr Docs dispute? its costed the NHS more in agency fees than in extra pay.

Other European countries don't have 7m on lists, just the UK.

No strike agreements don't work, lets have a working environment where strikes aren't required.

This infographic explains very clearly how many hospital appointments are cancelled and by who. The number cancelled by the strikes is tiny
In comparison to other reasons. As a PP has said many many appointments are cancelled due to lack of staff available. The strikes are all about safe staffing levels. This week a colleague of mine and her husband - GP and hospital consultant told me they were moving to Canada for a better work life balance. She didn't say for better pay.

The truth is that the UK has the most restrictive strike laws in the developed world. Striking is an extremely complicated and administratively very costly way of trying to negotiate pay. Nobody wants to strike. If there really was a genuinely independent pay body, free to set binding pay awards without interference from central government, especially the treasury, clearly this would be preferable to striking. However, this will never happen, because the treasury can never resist interfering and impoding the pay they want. This is why prison officers etc need the right to strike and why there is no alternative to the right to strike for doctors and midwives.

You can care for people and want to be paid a fair wage. The two are not mutually exclusive and the first is used to shame skilled professionals into working in unsafe and stressful working conditions and feel.happy about it

Everyone should have the right to strike. The NHS have been shouting for years the terrible working conditions and unsafe staffing levels. It is infuriating the only time people care about those is during a strike.

Hard disagree. The NHS needs a serious funding increase. Doctors deserve to be paid well, as do all NHS staff. Denying people their fundamental rights is not the answer. Look at who has created this situation. It's the Tory party.

I'll take your word for it.
So how will a 30% pay rise help the waiting lists?
If the mass of NHS strikes the public will have to endure hardly affected waiting lists,,, what is the "hardly" figure please?

Why do you feel Rushi is putting a block?

Striking is also exceptionally high risk for unions - remember eg the NUM, whose assets were all seized. Break the incredibly cumbersome balloting rules in the tiniest way and you will be in court fighting off an injunction. And this is the only place where the law still insists the union funds a postal ballot - imagine how complicated and expensive it is to run an unchallengeable postal ballot of tens of thousands of members - the gov refuses to countenance online ballots - wonder why - all to make it as difficult and expensive as possible for the union to meet the threshold for a valid ballot. Whenever that threshold is crossed nowadays, it is the clearest possible signal that people really have reached the end of their tether.

30% pay restoration (not a pay rise) will put doctors salaries back to where they were in 2010. Take home pay for an F1 is currently lower than it was in 2010, so imagine how much less that is taking inflation in to account.
Less doctors will then leave to either go abroad or do something else. More doctors means more appointments means the waiting lists go down.
It's so simple. But beyond our PM. But hey, he likes to insult bereaved parents.

These are absolute facts:

There were already 2.5m people on NHS waiting lists in 2010.

Just before covid in 2020 there were 5 million on waiting lists.

Now it is 7.5m.

The reasons are a lot to do with low staffing levels, going on years.

Stop playing politics and blaming doctors.

The Tories have a hell of a nerve after the dreadful mess they've made.

So how will a 30% pay rise help the waiting lists?

You seriously need to ask this? Let me explain it to you in very simple language. I apologise if there are words of more than one syllable.

'If you pay people well, they will want to work in your organisation. You will then have enough staff to work safely and well. You will be able to cover leave and illness. You will therefore have to cancel fewer operations.'

Hope that helps.

<facepalm>

Most hospitals been in critical incident in last 2 weeks. No strikes. So whose fault are those ? Government don't care, they just want to make more money for themselves and their mates.

@pointythings 😂 I think some of those words might be a bit too long. Maybe we need a nice picture book to explain it.

Care to post the reasons?
How about winter pressures, flue and covid?

The government has buried the new re covid etc but ask anyone that works in a hosptial or has been to A&E you can see it there

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12858403/worst-winter-NHS-trusts-critical-incidents-surge-bugs-biggest-strike-history.html

OP you clearly. Don't want o hear what you are being told. Winter pressure you mention above are now all year presssures, staff vacancies are not being filled which has a far greater impact on waiting times than strikes.
The pay review bodies you keep mention have existed for the 30 years I've worked in the NHS. Currently the government tell them how much they can spend. They have been asked to report months later by the government this year delaying pay awards. Most NHS staff would love a pay review body like the MP's who happily vote on there own pay rise.
We can't recruit staff form large English speaking nations or even Europe now. Most overseas recruitment is from Asia, India and other poorer nations. We have to pay these staff while they train to work in the NHS. We loose staff constantly to Auz and NZ. Of the past cohort of students I have seen all Barr one is heading abroad, they have paid for there degrees and are leaving. When you turn the NHS into a buisness model, the trained, skilled, educated work force expect to be paid as professionals.

I think you should find some different information sources @DistinguishedSocialCommenator. Reliance on the Mail isn’t a good idea.

You shouldn't need to "take my word for it" you, as a Distinguished social commentator, posting a controversial question, should know this already, its easy to compare figures.

Thats a different question but if a pay rise reduces Doc's leaving the NHS, then that will ease pressures on lists.
Doc's want serious negotiation, they will settle for far less than 30%, what they really want is long term pay restoration.

Emotive language "mass of strikes" its one sector, with the last strike 3/4 weeks ago?

Waiting lists were rising pre strikes and they have now stabilised.

If we don't keep Junior Docs in the UK, then in a few years time, we'll have fewer registrars & consultants than we need, what then?

Punishing people by removing rights will not solve recruitment and retention issues.

@DistinguishedSocialCommenator No thats not true, there are no critical incidents, the govt told us that they have prepared for winter pressures earlier than ever before, with record numbers of staff and money thrown at the predictable problems...... are you suggesting they were lying???

Might have helped if they had continued with free vaccinations for lower age groups for flu and CV plus not removing the advice that patient facing staff with CV should still see patients... talk about stupidity.
NHS staff can no longer get free LFTs either.

They are treating Cv as we might the common cold, yet tell us all that CV has helped cause "critical incidents" in hospitals.... which is it????

So how will a 30% pay rise help the waiting lists?

On its own, it won’t be enough. A surgeon isn’t operating on anyone on his/ her own. Outpatient clinics don’t just run because there are drs. Admin staff, nurses, opds, porters, radiology staff etc are all needed. Paying nhs staff better would improve recruitment, retention and sickness absence but it needs to be across the board, not just one staff group. But that is only part of the problem. Thousands of hospital beds have been lost in the last decade. So every winter the nhs runs out of beds. Surgery is cancelled and elective beds used for emergency admissions. Patient flow is a problem, medically optimised patients can’t be discharged due to social problems. This also impacts on bed capacity and in turn wait times. Training places have not kept up with demand and although the govt now have a plan to increase numbers, it’s a crisis management approach where they’ve waited too long to do anything. People take years to train.

“Winter pressures” are all year round pressures now, our two local hospitals are in crisis mode all year. The Trust refuses to say “critical incident” because it makes bad press 🤦‍♀️ so they call it “business continuity incident” instead! They announce one of these pretty much every week.
In the height of summer there was often 15 or more ambulances queuing outside A&E.

@DistinguishedSocialCommenator oh well if it's in the Daily Mail it must be true 😂.
Am assuming you don't work in A&E. Staff shortages are causing the issues, pure and simple. It's really not hard to understand surely ?

And not to be pedantic but it's not a pay rise they are looking for. It's pay restoration. Because during covid their pay went down by a weeks money alone.
Pay them or lose them. So v v simple.