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.

So you are saying a lot of it is not about pay?

It’s not GP’s that are striking, it’s junior doctors, many of whom are doing rotations in GP surgeries.

Governments don’t always accept the pay settlements recommended by review bodies.

How about addressing the actual issues rather than trying to create a diversion?

Let's be very clear, no one is being "spiteful" people inc me and millions of others just want a better NHS service and there is no reason why the NHS staff cant have a no-strike agreement like the millions of armed personnel and police officers.

Maybe the reason is that a no-strike agreement would make it even less likely to recruit doctors and nurses. So, the NHS would be even more understaffed.
Just a thought.

Healthcare professionals need better pay. Bus drivers are paid more per hour than some doctors, and as a senior nurse I've given serious thought to applying for a manager's job at Aldi! It isn't fair to say we're materialistic or putting money before lives, but neither is it fair to expect us to continue putting ourselves, our bodies and our families through unimaginable working conditions for a pittance, especially when making the wage more realistic would improve recruitment and therefore not only our working conditions but the service we're able to provide to you!

It's ludicrously short sighted to think banning us all from striking would help anything, with no prospect of the wage getting any better (nurses' pay is already recommended by an independent body btw, it's just the government often ignore their recommendations if they're inconvenient) why would anyone put themselves through it for the same money they could earn in a much less stressful job? I'm on annual leave this week and spent the entire first day in bed or on the sofa, I'm exhausted. Give your head a shake OP, and stop reading the Daily Mail!

Would you be happy if a relative of yours lost their life because NHS staff voted with their feet and left?

I’d happily stay on the average nurses wage for my entire career and not grumble. The reason I as a nurse was striking was because of working conditions. I have worked 12.5 hour shifts without a break more times than I can count, I have stayed past my finish time and not been paid for it at least once a week since I qualified. I have looked after double the amount of patients as is safe (and sometimes more!) most shifts. I am frequently doing the job of two nurses.

In no other profession are you expected to walk into work, be told your workload is double what it should be and you will be staying later/missing breaks with no renumeration day after day and day and just get on with it. I do deserve to be paid more than £37k a year. But I don’t want to be paid more, I want to be able to care for patients safely, I want to be able to eat a meal during a 12.5 hour shift, I want to have time for debriefs following traumatic resuscitations, I want to not have to rush medication rounds and risk making errors, I want the NHS to be better. That’s why we strike.

I’m conflicted. It’s apparent that the people who have the power to do anything about drs pay and conditions won’t be in the least bit affected by any strike and will be slow to take any action. That means the average Joe will suffer and they’re the ones who already agree that the NHS needs more funding.

Police and military personnel can’t strike as they are crown servants and not employees. It’s a total different set up and brings lots of job protections that the NHS couldn’t afford. To ban strikes without those extra protections is unjust.

DistinguishedSocialCommenator · Today 09:57

Did you read what I posted about the groups of people where they do not have a right to strike or are you just choosing to ignore that?

In reality, though, that only works because those groups comply. If they were pushed far enough, there’s nothing to prevent them from withdrawing their labour.

In answer to your question: no. We don’t live in a serfdom.

YABU. The right to strike is a human right. Maybe if their pay and conditions were good they wouldn’t need to strike…

No, taking away peoples democratic right to campaign for change isn’t the answer. The answer is to value those professions and pay them what they deserve.

MPs take the absolute piss with pay and expenses. The government need to be looking towards their own wasteful practices rather than starving the NHS and other public services of funds and then trying to wrongly blame them when services are not meeting targets.

@DistinguishedSocialCommenator 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.

You and Sunak are wrong

https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/how-are-strikes-by-health-care-staff-impacting-nhs-waiting-lists

**
Let's be very clear, no one is being "spiteful" people inc me and millions of others just want a better NHS service

In which case, ensure that you don’t vote conservative in the GE.

When I was 18 I thought being a doctor was a vocation.

Now I am 48, and gone through the PTSD, I do not. I think it is a job and a crap one at that.

I don't blame the junior doctors for striking, their lives are miserable and the money they get is not worth it.

£37k for an experienced acute care (hospital) nurse sounds like a generous salary. However once you factor in that they spend most of their 12 hours shifts on their feet, constantly switching between day and night shifts, getting up at 6 am on Sunday mornings when the majority of the population are still in bed, working on Christmas day, dealing with bodily fluids, dying patients and emergencies- does that still sound like a generous salary? We don't have a shortage of IT engineers and financial people in this country. Their pay is set by the private sector, our pay is set up by the government. I can't afford to own a car. My sister in law is an experienced childminder. She drives a Mercedes. Lots of my colleagues are leaving for other careers. NHS is hemorrhaging staff on a massive scale. Faster than it being replaced.

No

Rishi Sunak is a lying twat. YABU for listening to anything that fucker says.

It's not a race to the bottom. Drs need better pay and working conditions need to be improved for all NHS staff. Attracting more Drs and nurses with better pay would be a start

Lidl pay better than the NHS up to and including band 5. B5 is a qualified health professional.

Do you want qualified and experienced staff or not? As you gain experience your pay increases. I am a specialist health professional but live basically because my pay doesn't match my skills and experience.

This is a spiteful post and you are only agreeing with those that agree with you.

You are clearly very privileged but you need to get out of your echo chamber.

No .

muchalover · Today 11:01

Lidl pay better than the NHS up to and including band 5. B5 is a qualified health professional.

Good god, that’s shocking.

Take away our right to strike, we will go home on time, we'll take every unpaid break we are entitled to, we will go for a wee at normal intervals.

We can call the police every time a patient or relative is aggressive. We can if more the phone when the ward desperately needs cover.

We can stop doing the thousand little things we do every day which aren't working to rule.

All these can be done in perpetuity, now tell me if the above will lose the nhs more or less hours than a few days planned strikes.

Ive also cleary stated a pay body like that of MP's should be set up

There is one already.

the Pay erosion for nursing, AHPs and doctors has been huge.

our pay review bodies were often ignored.

if you take away our right to strike a lot of us will just leave.

it “costs” a lot to train - weekends, exam fees, missing social stuff, relentless study.

if I’d known as an idealistic 24yo that my life would be so different from my bosses in 20yrs I’d have jacked it in then. I made it to one of my friends hen nights. I missed shit loads of weddings. I paid out over 10grand in exam fees and revision courses that were essential for career progression. That weren’t even tax deductible in the early naughties.

I’m fed up. Either this country can start paying appropriately for my skills and experience or I’m done.

This is pretty much why we can’t recruit for our band 2/3 positions. 10 years ago we’d have got 60/70 applicants to short list. We’ve had none for the last one, 1 for the one before.

As a general rule they don’t tend to last long once employed either.