To think the BMA have misjudged with another doctor's strike?

[Locutus2000]

Last year they got more than anyone else in the NHS along with an improved deal. Nurses and other AHPs received lower rises.

BMA have just announced another 'resident' doctor strike continuing to chase pay restoration to 2008 levels.

Having just had the major win with changes to IMG prioritisation and the clamp-down on PAs it feels a bit tone-deaf and I can't see Streeting going for it.

@Goldusty are you offering to pay their rent and bills ? V kind of you

Just wow. So our doctors now are less educated. Maybe complain to GMC and the consultants enabling this.
Back in the real world, doctors face being unemployed while waiting lists are 7 million,

I’m with Robert Winston. I resigned from the BMA the last time around. I will never strike. Not in my name.

@ThePurehow much student debt do you have ?

Add in the 8.4% employers pension increase bringing it from 20.3% up to 28.7%, when many people get the 3% minimum or just above

None any more I paid it off after 20+ years working for the NHS. So will these guys in due course

I never understand the fuss about student debt. It is basically a graduate tax for going to uni it’s not like credit card debt or something. It just sits there gradually getting paid back and eventually it will be done.

Supply and demand. All those threads about the scandal of unemployed Drs and yet apparently they need to be paid more or they will all leave and we won’t have any Drs. Can’t have it both ways surely? If unemployment is high then wages fall rather than rise.

Just curious - where you have concerns about competence, do you report them (no matter where they are from)?

I’ve been fortunate so far not to need hospital care, but if I did, I would have just accepted that the competence was an certain standard across the board, so what you’ve said is worrying.

It probably is all about economics, but not in the way you think.

The NHS has been importing cheap labour for decades. Doctors with good skills and experience willing to start at the bottom of the pay scale in return for salaries that are higher than in their own countries and with the promise of settlement rights for families.

With no protection for doctors already resident in the UK (Boris' dropping of the Resident Migrant Labour Test used in places like Australia) whether it be those just finishing F2 and doctors from overseas who have come to the end of short term contracts, are struggling to find work. Application numbers for entry level jobs are often in the hundreds and sometimes thousands.

These doctors have no choice but to leave the profession, move abroad or to try to survive on a very limited number of zero hours shifts.

So the NHS continues to import doctors forcing those already in the country to leave.

This obviously will have an impact on salary. DD almost certainly will have to go to Australia. I doubt she has even looked at the salary or cost of living. It is a job, and she needs a job. In the same way as many doctors with a huge oversupply from private medical schools (India and Malaysia are examples) will come to the UK. Doctors starting out on their careers need experience.

This constant importing of cheaper labour is probably having an impact on overall wage rates. I think I read somewhere that over a third of members of the BMA qualified overseas. There is certainly a noticeable lobby in favour of the status quo, perhaps because recruitment agencies, PHAB training etc have been profitable sidelines for UK based doctors. (Interesting to see that BAPIO, yesterday have changed their approach effectively conceding that the problems facing UK graduates need to be considered - I can post the letter if people want.)

Anyways once in the system overseas doctors may feel they are doing more work whilst earning less than colleagues, and without training/promotion opportunities. When application numbers are in the thousands, it can be possible for the NHS Trust to recruit someone with ten years experience and additional qualifications, rather than the newly qualified doctor the job was designed for. Whilst the availability of a cheap supply of doctors from across Asia and Africa means that wages overall are supressed.

Both groups feel wage parity should be restored. The BMA leader Dr Melissa Healy is not from the UK and did not study here. I would be interested in why she chose to study in Italy rather than NZ, and then why she chose to take up a training place in the UK rather than in either NZ or Italy. Perhaps at the time the UK offered better opportunities. But given the way human nature works, she now wants pay parity with other countries, presumably including NZ.

Neither group probably cares much about the many young doctors who don't have work. DD had hoped she might be able to pick up a maternity leave cover, but the department does not have the budget for that cover. Existing doctors will have to stretch further and wait lists, already far too long, will get longer. Existing doctors may then be right to feel they deserve more pay, and won't be thinking that the additional cost will mean even fewer ad hoc opportunities for DD and her peers. Overqualified doctors recruited to entry level jobs won't be thinking that their recruitment deprived UK F2s of a career. Instead they are working hard and above their pay grade so will be feeling exploited.

What is shocking and shameful is that the BMA are doing nothing about doctor unemployment, and the causes. Instead they are using F1 t&c as the basis for their claims, F1s who if things don't change, will probably have to emigrate to find work.

Perhaps they should use resident doctors more sensibly. I know someone who had a minor procedure recently and bloods were taken and a cannula inserted by an F2 doctor. Why? A competent nurse could easily have done that.

@BIossomtoes nurses are not all trained to do that now.

Quite.

Even the BMA acknowledge this with the ’24 deal alone averaging 20-25%. Add in the roughly 5% the previous year and it is nearly 30% for the more junior ranks, slightly less for the seniors:

https://www.bma.org.uk/our-campaigns/resident-doctor-campaigns/pay-in-england/2024-pay-deal-for-resident-doctors-working-in-england

And of course no productivity changes, no relief on the pensions. There is also the fact that the pyramid in medical careers allows a much higher percentage of starters to reach the top than in comparable professions.

No one even in healthcare gets close to that, let alone the rest of the public sector. The private sector by and large could only dream of such pay rises - including in the sectors which have seen stagnant growth, pay decline (actual decline not just relative decline) and widespread redundancies.

As for the “outrage” of anyone in health care daring to earn more than a junior doctor - well most of those earning more in the first couple of years don’t have the career path or opportunities. The constant disparaging of other healthcare workers (who also have student loans, just like every other graduate) just undermines any credibility in the case.

When I was a grunty little graduate I earned less than a skilled executive assistant. Frankly I was worth less as I was at the stage of doing the 80 hours weeks to learn my trade (but without paid overtime or shift allowances in the private sector professional track). However I had the path in front of me which took me to substantially more - the EA would have had to shift careers to significantly increase their earnings.

Where has anyone been disparaging of other workers ? And why should people be badly paid now because one day they MIGHT earn more ? You should be paid for the job you do today. If doctors were on the same scale as PAs they would start on £15,000 more than they do as an F1, by virtue of the responsibilities they take.

And many young doctors can’t afford to be in the NHS pension scheme these days as their take home is too low to pay the bills.

Hope no one here who thinks medical staff are worth less than 10 years ago banged pans to support the NHS. While people baked bread and sat at home furloughed these young people carried on doing their job, while at the same time getting a real time pay cut.

You are constantly bashing PAs. Fine, give Doctors the PA salary scale - all the way through, not just cherry picking the first year or two of the PA scale.

First year junior doctors now have a basic of 36k (according to the BMA), second year 42k (again BMA figures). That is more than most graduate starting salaries and doesn’t include paid overtime, shifts etc which in most professions are unpaid overtime.

You seem to be deluded about life for everyone else both in the public and private sectors.

Doctors deserve to be well rewarded when they do a good job. They are not uniquely hard done by - even on current scales they are well above average. I would be a lot more sympathetic if the BMA talked more about T&C and pension relief to skew more benefits in the early years. However the BMA have repeatedly demonstrated that facts are not their strong point and playing politics is more important that the doctors they are supposed to represent (which is why so many doctors are voting with their feet and leaving).

What I find astounding is how a cohort including the most educated members of society (many still privately educated) have allowed their Union to be taken over by entryists and play politics with their careers.

What I find astounding is how a cohort including the most educated members of society (many still privately educated) have allowed their Union to be taken over by entryists and play politics with their careers.

If you want a window into the mentality of striking doctors have a look at the subreddit for junior doctors. The entitlement and arrogance is something else.

@C8H10N4O2 find one quote where I have ‘bashed’ PAs. I have said they should not be paid more than doctors and should not be operating beyond scope. Fail to see how that is anything but stating facts 🤷‍♀️

Whether right or wrong, this is the way of training schemes everywhere. It is hardly unique to the F1-F2s, aged mid 20s, who are the only resident doctors of whom this can conceivably be said.

Many of us aren’t against the resident doctors per se. We just think that others should have their turn.

@C8H10N4O2 again, why should doctors not be paid for the job they do, like everyone else. PAs are supposed to be supporting doctors and not have much progression, that’s what the job was set up to do. If you want to play doctor, go to medical school. Either you need a 5 year degree, 2 year foundation and 7 years training or you don’t and can just do an 18 month course. If that’s the case, then we need to close all medical schools now as a pointless waste of money if can just train on the job.

@poetryandwine PAs out earn doctors up to ST3. What do you mean ‘others get their turn’ ? Bit confused if mean anyone should now be allowed to have a go at operating ?

They don’t need to be although they should. It’s not a sensible use of doctors’ time.

I agree. DS is hoping to be an academic. Needed to be very close to top of his year at University. Expensive Masters in the UK where he was placed second out of a very strong international cohort. Very lucky to get a six year funded PhD in the US. Sadly runner up for a lecturer job at a RG university so instead a 3 year post doc fellowship.

It is fortunate that his subject is in high demand with Universities and non academic employers. However the academic job market is in a state of crisis and he will be very lucky to land a lecturer position in two years time. I doubt he earns as much as his younger F2 sister - I understand that Post Docs are so poorly paid that they don't meet income requirements for bringing a spouse in. If he does land a lecturer job the pay ain't great and it is normally three years before you get tenure.

He is not complaining. Its life, and the life he wants. There again his sister is not complaining, or at least about pay. (Working conditions in a failing NHS and the lack of a job are much bigger issues.) Most of her friends in a very deprived area are not medics. Doctors salaries, and in normal circumstances, their job security, are enviable.

I hope more people do leave the BMA over this. It seems to me the only effective way to protest this. I left last year after 20+ years of membership because they do not speak for me. I told them why but they did not particularly care about one member. I joined Unite but that’s not ideal either (although they are a darn sight cheaper).

I hope that someone starts a Union for Drs who don’t want to cripple the NHS and harm patients by striking over pay but who campaign to keep the NHS public and for reforms that benefit patients. That’s the kind of Union I would be happy to pay my subs to.

My trust was paying consultants an insane amount of money to cover junior Drs night shifts last time. It was such a shameful waste of public money plus the entire management and all the consultants were distracted from actually caring for people and making things better just firefighting this. It’s not really worth my while financially do the cover shifts, although the headline rate is high, because of the marginal tax rates. I did do a lot of shifts last time just to be helpful but I was exhausted doing 3 peoples jobs at once and still having to do my own work next day after a night shift. In the early noughties I could manage that but no longer. I am going to be less available this time for my own sanity.

Others should get their turn at a decent pay rise. ST3 is aged late 20s-early 30s. You are comparing career high PA salaries to the salaries of people in training who are on a sharp upwards trajectory.

It is like comparing the salary of a postdoc in medical sciences of the same age to that of a senior classroom teacher. The teacher is making at least £10K more. The postdoc is just setting out.

But I have never come across a postdoc who is offended by this.

Nurses would say it’s not actually a sensible use of their time either. A phlebotomist could do this job quicker, cheaper and better it’s a practical skill that does not require any kind of degree. When I was a junior Dr this stuff was what PAs were for and we hugely appreciated them.