Junior Doctors Unemployment in August

[PurpleFairyLights]

Name changed but long term poster. Have a child that is in this situation with 100k of student debt.

https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2025-05-07/bma-we-could-potentially-see-thousands-of-unemployed-doctors

Unbelievable this was allowed. Most countries protect their medical graduates.

I have been thinking that on and off too. Why else would they be posting on a thread that is nothing to do with them?

Agree. Unhappy with prioritisation.

I agree. I think those you mentioned will be out in force lobbying for delays or amendment to UK grad prioritisation.

I would also like to know why the decision was not reversed after Covid? And who allowed the gravey trains to be set up?

Grandfathering needs to be stopped right now to enable this year's unemployed doctors to have a chance to get into training next year. I predict a lot of people will be trying to enforce Grandfathering

On AIBU people are allowed to disagree with you. You are not the fount of all knowledge about all things medical, none of us is. I think that someone who has lived with or been married to a doctor for potentially 40 years is just as entitled to an opinion as someone who has been the mother of a junior doctor for two years.

You should not call anyone ignorant because they disagree with you.

You should not make assumptions about other posters. I have been honest about who I am, there is no reason to think that other posters haven't. But whoever they are they are allowed to voice their opinion. Don't post in AIBU if you can't face hearing people tell you that you are indeed unreasonable.

Wannabewitch was right about pay for baristas and doctors. Doctors are, or used to be, seen as professionals and they are not paid hourly. Their salary will increase quite rapidly.

They just definitely are paid hourly, it’s on their payslips as an hourly amount.

And their salary will not increase rapidly. Many are stuck at F2 pay for years. Really out of touch comments again.

This year many will be facing a massive pay cut as unemployed doctors are paid zero.

@oddandelsewhere and several of the mummies on here are also doctors. Not just married to one.

Oh and as mummies of current F2s we know more than the wife of a consultant about the current plight of F2s. Unless you regularly talk to random doctors as you state that your own kids are not doctors (far too good for that).

Completely agree. Some people are very out of touch.

I am not married to a doctor - in fact have never dated a member of the medical profession or allied healthcare professional.

i have no problem with jobs being prioiritised for GB graduates if they make the grade. I object to the concept that every doctor has the right to be trained in the speciality of their choosing with no competition. That makes for laziness and lack of ambition and lowers standards.

78hr weeks are not routine for residents, other than a 6 day stretch of nights. Rotas are written and checked to ensure they are compliant.

£39K minimum for a first graduate job on 8-5 is not a bad starting salary
People move up the increments and do not get stuck on F2 salary for years - again utter rubbish spouted again. As a professional person a salary is paid per month without totting up every single hour.

Studying for exams after a days work is not unique to doctors and they do it for 3-4 months, pay for the exam , pass and relax until they are competent for the next part. They are not studying every night. The hyperbole and fantasy of what a resident does nowadays on this thread is amazing.

Medicine is hard, competitive, tiring and rewarding - something some of us know all bout first hand. Many of us have faced unemployment along this road - ie, every 6 months when the next job needed to be applied for. but then as you have already decide I am some wifey who knows nothing about the life of a doctor in a UK hospital! if you thin conditions are bad in the UK, look at the US residency system for hard work and piss poor!

Medicine has changed, it evolves all the time but fundamentally a lot of it is the same, just in a different guise. Some of the posters are coming at it as if training, competition and unemployment in medicine were something new - they aren't. Always been there but on different scales, some worse and some more

ignoring opinions that differ from your own and not being prepared to civilly debate the point does to reflect highly on that person.

Those IMGs or groups lobbying against UK grad prioritisation might find it more useful to lobby their home countries to expand postgraduate training and improve salaries and working conditions back home. All those IMGs duped by recruitment agencies and training academies should take up the matters directly with them.

An over reliance on IMGs without training the domestic workforce not only has the consequences we are seeing now but is unethical so prioritising UK graduates is the right approach. The costs of implementing the demands of lobby groups influential in workforce planning should be investigated to ensure that it's not taking up a disproportionate amount of the NHS budget.

IMGs will always be important in the NHS and should be accommodated when there is capacity. Unfortunately, in the current situation, the numbers of overall doctors needing the training posts far, far outweigh the number of training posts so equal footing is unfair. At a time like this, it's unreasonable for IMGs to expect prioritisation. There will be pressure from various groups but the government will be judged by the electorate on their ability to not cave in to external pressures, especially from groups with conflicts of interests.

As for why prioritisation didn't happen before, probably because a different party was in government. Post Brexit, they needed investment in the UK to mitigate the damage caused to the economy so they abolished the RLMT to help businesses struggling to recruit and stay afloat. Over reliance on cheap foreign labour not only means there is a reduction in the domestic workforce but it also keeps salaries low in the UK. Money spent on a UK worker is normally spent in the UK but many foreign workers send remittances back to their home countries so it's not money that's reinvested in the UK unlike that from the domestic workforce. If this carries on, you deskill the domestic workforce. Anger and resentment amongst citizens and residents who don't have jobs ultimately lead to division and instability and we don't want that.

Without the RLMT and with a flawed points based immigration system, there wasn't a need to show that there was no domestic worker who could do the same job. The domestic workforce stopped being prioritised.

Recruitment agencies and academies started running lucrative businesses bringing in new IMGs even at the detriment of the interests of IMGs already in the UK. With their ear to the ground, I honestly don't understand how lobby groups could have been tone deaf to the looming unemployment crisis of the domestic workforce. Their excellent relationship with the leadership of their home countries means that they are best placed to pressure the authorities to expand postgraduate training places back home to accommodate their ever increasing number of medical graduates rather than seeking to place them in the UK.

As for merit, I repeat: the recruitment of IMGs who are either exempt from licensing exams or sit an easier version of it does not guarantee the candidate is recruited on merit. Also not if they have gamed the recruitment system by paying for expensive courses to be fast tracked by agencies and academies exploiting weaknesses in the immigration system. They're just leapfrogging other new IMGs who may be more deserving. Don't get us started on the credibility of CREST forms signed off overseas. Then there are those purely using the UK as a stepping stone to access global jobs overseas which is a terrible investment for the NHS.

@onemorepiece are you worried that these groups will lobby for IMGs already here to have the same priority as UK grads?

I am as it means that the backlog of UK grads getting training places could take years to clear.

What will the UK grads do when there are very few trust grade jobs available? Also how competitive will the doctors who have not worked for a year be in the application cycle for next year?

they really don’t understand the issues at all. Quite sad as would be so easy to educate themselves if married to a consultant. But some people just want to be right and not face the truth. Unemployed doctors are already a reality which is set to become much worse in August. Good doctors, hard working young people who want to work in the NHS forever.

@wannabewitch sorry, you know no one who is a F2 doctor but you make bold statements about the life of an F2 doctor. Based on what ? Watching Casualty ?

i think I know slightly more F2 doctors than you do.

Not snobbery but fact. You should look at the hourly rate not the annual salary. I can pm you a payslip if you don't believe it. Or Google the posts from the strikes last year when Drs were posting their payslips from 20 years ago and comparing them to F1s now.

There will be opposition but I am going to wait until we hear directly from the government on these issues. Not worth speculating or worrying about it until then. It's probably wise for anyone wanting prioritisation of UK MGs to keep the pressure up until the government confirms it. As with everything, the devil is in the detail. Hopefully Wes will have been provided with all the supporting information and the latest statistics and not ones from a few years back before the IMG numbers got out of hand.

I think it will be unwise for IMGs or lobbies who object to prioritisation to keep making unreasonable demands on UK taxpayers to support the careers of IMGs. This would be especially so if their home countries over expanded their number of medical schools without providing training opportunities for their graduates. Such demands will ultimately backfire to the point that it undos all the progress made by lobby groups within the NHS to protect IMG interests. IMGs have always been welcome and have made valuable contributions to the NHS. They should continue to have roles but UKMGs should not have to sacrifice their careers to make that happen.

Many IMGs understand and accept the case for the prioritisation of UKMGs given the current training and employment issues. The government is under pressure to get the net migration figures down. Prioritisation of UK MGs helps with this. It's just that they will have to figure out how to accomodate IMGs already working in the NHS and UK medical graduates they have invested in. That is of course the difficult bit and hopefully there will clarity on this soon. I know the numbers far exceeds training places making it a complex issue but as I understand it they are seeking to fund more training numbers. They may possibly reform the training structure. I imagine work is going on behind the scenes on how to achieve all this in the context of the new workforce plan. Until we know all the details relating to how prioritisation is going to be implemented and the new immigration rules, it's not worth overthinking it.

@wannabewitch
” I object to the concept that every doctor has the right to be trained in the speciality of their choosing with no competition.“ Literally no one has said that. No one.

@wannabewitch. Oooh can we play that game. I have 193 current F2s in my WhatsApp group. And 189 F1s. How many do you have ? See I’m not just a mummy. And I’ve been doing this a while now. I attend 7 Uni induction days every year asking for volunteers, so meet loads of young doctors. And I’m v good at building networks of humans to educate not only myself but young people wanting to become doctors.

How do you know all these F2s as not a doctor ? Do you hang around the mess on pizza day ?

I also know lots of consultants, all of whom are supporting of their juniors.

PS they get portfolio points for helping at WP events for some specialities if anyone reading is interested.

Thanks. What are WP events?

@PurpleFairyLights widening participation. We run events to help and support students who don’t come from backgrounds where there is the knowledge about applying for Med School. Started as just my own school but has now got totally out of hand and do it for lots 😂. Current students and doctors come and we talk about UCAT, work experience, different styles of learning, the process of becoming a doctor etc. We also run a big annual thing now where we have teachers attend. I love it as many of my own students return to help, and some of them have succeeded against all the odds.

@mumsneedwine thanks very much for that.

Sorry whats app group friends aren't my way of tallying - I prefer face to face contact and speaking to them one to one and over this year - 123.

I support residents training and congratulations to the poster whose daughter had got her number. She tried, applied and succeeded. So many people have not even tried applying - if you do not try, then you do not know whether you would have succeeded.

Yes people on here have said every doctor should have access to specialist training - no one has mentioned ability aptitude etc