To think this budget will finish us off

[BurnoutGP]

I am a GP Partner of over 20 years. I am now senior partner for the last few years. We have seen year on year below inflation funding increase. With an explosion in demand and massive shift of work from secondary care. We have issues wirh recruitment.
Our partner income is shrinking year on year. We are now always overdrawn and this gets worse every month.
We just cannot soak up the MLW and NI without adequate resource uplift.
I think we will be done. I'm so very tired of the constant battle and the demand and anger while working "part time" 60hr weeks.
We will have to hand back our contract. And we wont be the only one. That will leave one surviving practice in my area.
I'm done.

Ah so you're a lawyer. That explains your comment. Yes, children do need human contact to learn. I don't know how much longer you expect to work. If it's a a couple of years, then you are right that major changes are unlikely. If it's 20 or 30, think again. I think there will be a lot less lawyers and the others on my list over that time period. The government will still have some degree of responsibility for essentials such as healthcare provision and education.

Children with Sen aren’t exempt from the vat, it’s if the school is named in an ehcp then the local authority pay the fees anyway including the vat, so the parents don’t have to pay the vat but that’s because they don’t pay any of the fees. This doesn’t apply to children without ehcps

Yes it’s normal. Worked in a GP practice for nearly 30 years. Reception etc on NMW.

Band 5 requires a degree though! Nurses, radiographers etc start at band 5! Not sure that’s comparable to a gp receptionist ?

Aye, but you're not struggling to eat on 75k a year, are you?

People were and ARE struggling to eat and keep their heads above water on the current minimum wage. Begrudging people for earning 25k on a full time wage is utter madness.

You are aware also of the association between poverty and ill health as a doctor, yeah?

I struggle to see how anyone needs an extra 50k per year income above the NMW increase, if they are aghast that anyone needs a 25k income, to live.

You don't NEED a 75k income. You want it. You think you are entitled to it, whilst you believe that the NMW workers (ie your 'poor receptionists') aren't entitled to 25k a year.

There really does come a point when the privilege of money, skews a persons head up, regardless of their egotistical idea of entitlement through 'sheer hard work' that lower earners of course, never have, or do.

@rainingsnoring you’ve missed the point.

children need human contact to learn in the same way clients need humans to explain the intricacies and nuances of their legal case. I.e. not actually that much.

As I said I know my profession is changing enormously: contracting, referencing, a good deal of research can - and is - done by AI. There will definitely be many less lawyers doing what they do today than ten years from now. But I understand that and am preparing for it. Unlike you who, extraordinarily, seems to think that because you believe human contact is necessary to teach the government will bear that in mind when developing cost cutting plans. Spoiler they won’t.

We also have the enormous benefit - like all service providers with a client base willing to pay - that there will be an interim period during which humans will be able to provide a service as good as AI and those who prefer human delivery will seek it and pay for it. Not so for teachers.

I have several GP friends who take home well over 120k a year each (NW) and don’t work a full week. Sounds like some practices haven’t changed with the times. As someone who earns well over the national average, I’m frankly sick of seeing other well paid people moaning that ‘unskilled’ workers get a minimal pay increase. The fact that you’ll have to close the practice because you can’t run it without them says it all, these so called ‘unskilled’ jobs with horrible hours and conditions and historically shit pay make the world go round.

Band 5 doesn’t always require a degree. I said in my post that receptionist with additional responsibilities (perhaps managing other office/reception staff) would be a band 5 with standard receptionists in my large nhs trust being a band 4. I’m just telling you what’s normal in the nhs outside gp world.

People may “expect” it, but the reality the receptionist who gets bitched about constantly on this forum is probably on NMW.

Totally out of line with the nhs agenda for change pay scale compared to hospitals. GP staff should be in line with that imo. I don’t think that’s a wild expectation.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 seriously, bless you, I’ve been working for just shy of 30 years in a surgery and don’t even get your lower figure! For a 37 hour week.

That’s real life for you. I do it because I love my job and making a small difference to people. I do phlebotomy and admin.

I was above NMW but it will only be by about 20p come April 2025 and I won’t receive the same percentage in pay rise because I’m well aware the money just isn’t there.

I’ve just searched for receptionist roles on health jobs and shockingly most are band 2?! I’m sure when I started out as an administrator after uni (band 3) the receptionists were band 3 at least. Band 2 for that job…Jesus Christ

I find it utterly bizarre that you are arguing that children don't need human contact to learn. Do you have any children? Do they learn nothing from regular human contact and conversations with you? Do you honestly think a talking chatbot could substitute for a parent? A corporate lawyer's clients can pay a lot so have the luxury of human contact. It is not a necessity for their development in the same way that it is for children. There's no certainty that in 20 or 30 years corporate lawyers will still have the same client base. The demand may well have changed considerably.
Your second point about the government and cost cutting is a valid one but I am also disputing that AI, at least AI in general, would provide a significant reduction in costs once the costs of running it and developing it are taken into account. Spoiler alert- it might be too expensive to be brought in whole scale as you seem to imagine it will be.
It would be interesting to review this in a couple of decades.

Ah, I thought that had been the case but read something that suggested those with EHCPs were exempt. EHCPs don’t exist in Scotland (or Wales or NI). Thanks for clarifying.

Maybe that’s why we’ve had the same receptionists for 25 years in my hospital.

Are many of your staff on minimum wage?

How much do you and your GP partners take home?

We don’t have receptionists at out surgery - they are ‘care navigators’. But whilst a Band 5 is the starting point for someone with a degree, it could also be a landing point for someone without a degree but with experience and sub-degree courses.

One thing people seem to forget is when pay rises are awarded even if all grades/professions got the same rise this translates into widening differences in pay. So a 5% pay rise would be just £1.5k for someone on £30k (eg nurse), and £5k for someone on £100k (eg consultant). And after just one year the pay differential between nurses and consultants has increased from £70k to £73.5k.

They have 14 years of complete Tory shit of running down - well, EVERYTHING - to begin to undo. Give them a chance!
Or do you want the other lot to finish their decimation of public services, NHS etc etc? Whilst lining their and their friends' pockets?
I KNOW the personal, business and familial cost of this budget. It's affected us as well. But seriously, what are they supposed to do? Magic the missing money from thin air?
People have such short memories.

Is that what they’re called? I changed surgeries because I was sick of the receptionists thinking they knew more about my genetic condition than I did and booking me appointments with a nurse or physio when I’d explained I needed the GP. The nurse and physio would apologise to me for my wasted journey and ask me to rebook with the doctor. Which involved another three-week wait. The old system was better.

Would have helped if the NHS weren’t still paying off the £80bn debt Labour incurred last time for an investment of just £13bn. Yesterday’s announcement is only a portion of that.

We have to fill out an online form to get an appointment. Sometimes we get an email back from a GP completely missing the point, or failing to tell you they sent a prescription to the pharmacy, meaning you have to fill out another form and they reply wondering why you didn’t collect the prescription they didn’t tell you about last time.

I used to work in government - financed health. For the hours I worked, and the burden of risk and responsibility I carried, they rate of pay was insulting, and the expectations unmanageable. It broke me. I moved to private industry, where, with my qualifications, my income has doubled for half the hours. I regret that I can't do more "worthy" work, but I'm only human, and at some point, I have to prioritise myself and my family.

You need to pay GPs, otherwise commerce will poach them.

It's unlikely for 2 reasons, some business owners are greedy and/or because there just isn't enough money coming in.

I totally agree with this! But I think the problem lies with the cost of housing being so high now that even the lowest paid unskilled job needs to cover high housing costs. The PP who said tackling COL is key is spot on! Not a quick fix but council housing for the masses would help so much! In my (cheaper) area a 3 bed council house is £430 pcm. There is a huge stock of ex council houses in the private market commanding £650+pcm for the exact same houses! So we either pay higher wages or top up with housing benefit to afford the extortionate housing costs!