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.

This is all beside the point which is that whoever does it a doctor isn’t the right person.

I notice there are lot fewer posts defending the doctors pay demands this time round of railing against 'another doctor bashing thread". Maybe.The doctors realise they are losing public sympathy as well as the good will of trusts where there are massive Giancarlo pressures leading to recruitment and CPD freezes for a whole range of peoffessions. It makes a mockery of trusts declaring they are intent of improving efficiency with the patient at the heart of things.

If the NHS was working well.

On one rotation DD ended up doing a lot of that sort of work. F1s are only there for 4 months, other staff are permanent. Her experience was not unique. Consultants should be running departments but in a failing NHS problems such as too many vacancies at senior level, consultants recruited new to the NHS, or balancing private work with NHS work, or with better clinical skills than administrative skills, this is not always the case.

The problem in terms of reforming the NHS is where to start. More pay means even less money for things that are needed. And I assume most of those working in overstretched areas would want improvements in working conditions, for them and their colleagues. Burn out is a real problem. They are down 50% of F2s in DDs current placement and similar is happening at all levels. More pay with even less budget for things that would make working life easier, will not solve the problem.

Consultants should be running departments

No they shouldn’t, they should be treating patients. Administrators should be running departments.

Sorry. I am not medical.

All I know is that it was an unpopular F1 placement as they were not getting effective protection.

Perhaps it was easier to side with permanent staff than to stick up for those on short rotations.

(Actually there was a follow-up as DD bumped into one of her former colleagues whilst shopping. The 'problem' had been given a promotion which meant they were moved on. A very NHS approach.)

Even if they don't run departments should Consultants look after F1/F2s as presumably they are under their supervision.

@poetryandwine I agree everyone should get a decent pay rise, but here we are talking about doctors.

And I’m surprised a senior medical scientist doesn't earn more than £39,000. That’s £10,000 less than the most senior classroom teacher. But I know nothing about their job.

A postdoc is not considered to be senior.

Posted prematurely, @mumsneedwine

Many on this thread have said it is impossible to talk about resident doctors in a vacuum.

Postdocs are not senior in the same sense that early-ish career specialists are not senior. They may have a lot of responsibility in the moment, but they defo report upwards.

Actually the published range for PD salaries exclusive of London weighting does often extend into the low £40s nowadays. But in practice this is usually for someone on their second PD position, similar to a Senior Registrar. I was trying to stay away from that.

You live within your means

And, assuming science post docs follow a similar path to economics post docs, many will be in their 30s rather than 20s. DS managed to go straight through the system without a year out. It is relatively unusual to get PhD funding without a post Masters 'gap year' etc.

Its not just academics a tenant of mine is a data scientist. Very bright, abandoned a PhD, working for a financial institution. No real pay rises in six years, and bonuses have evaporated. She was just relieved not to be laid off during Covid and through a company takeover. New company is registered on one of those Caribbean islands which registers faceless entities, and they are demanding all staff sign very detrimental contracts. (Though now negotiating with her as they genuinely to keep her.)

A finance type consultant I met says that since the UK India trade deal they are struggling to compete and are having to lay off staff. Their Indian competitor is able to bring in staff from India and be exempted from employment costs for three years. His loss may be balanced elsewhere from the benefits of more trade, but tough on his firm. Even the National Trust are saying today that they are having to lay off staff because of increased employment costs. There will be hundreds of similar stories. Local cafes closing. Local housebuilders going under. And and and. Life is tough for a lot of people.

Doctors in secure jobs will be able to weather the storm. (And if everything is going under they have good life jackets.) Many people will consider their current approach tone deaf.

In the same way that those, soon to be unemployed, F2s relying on occasional NHS Bank shifts will have to do.

But the BMA does not care about them.

My dad died a few weeks ago and the lack of care, knowledge and general neglect was appalling.
I won’t get into it but all sectors face cuts.
The BMA are taking the piss.
I didn’t complain about the difficulties in my dad’s care because I know it’s tough.
But please, don’t take the piss, you have no support here when I see nurses and doctors walking the ward like it’s a hardship.
You get paid fairly well.
The inhumane treatment of people shouldn’t be a factor in pay but I just saw pure apathy in this hospital.
Work in a an office if you don’t care. My dad died in effin agony.

if I went on strike it job maybe stuff would be late or you get a rollicking.
Do you people do this knowing people are dying?
Go work in a shit job and stop holding this country to ransom who has nothing left. You know that’s true.
They are trying to take all disability away and you want that money?
Live in the real world. The UK is a mess. You can’t ask for this, it’s gonna break the country politically and economically.
Support is gone. It now seems greedy and the care is SHIT.
But if you get your rise the care will be good again?
yeah right.
scrap NI and all go private IMO.

One of the threats, from Dr Melissa Eyan in particular, has been that ‘we could go elsewhere. I could triple my salary in America tomorrow.’

This is badly mistaken. I have just looked up American resident doctor salaries. Medical school is a four year PG degree, then two years of internship. That’s roughly F1-F2 and the pay is similar. Resident pay is similar to the lower bands of CT-ST pay, because it ends sooner. Post resident fellowships pay like the upper bands.

Hilariously, bad AI confuses ‘intern’ with Consultant level Doctor of Internal Medicine and salaries for the latter are indeed triple early stage resident doctor salaries. If Doctor Ryan based her statement (that I saw on Newsnight, the other night) on this mistake, that says it all, doesn’t it?

If you are striking it doesn't endear yourself to the hard pressed public saying well I could have been a banker but I chose medicine so deserve compensation for taking the more altruistic career path as a high flyer (similarly to working abroad).

A lot of us aren't middle class with A level A stars coming out of our ears and enjoying supportive upbringings with parental financial safety net. Going doctors to retain sympathy must learn to read the room as they say.

If Dr Melissa Ryan could triple her salary elsewhere maybe she could do the UK a favour and piss off there. I’d be happy to donate to her fare.

There are plenty of hard working, diligent medics from abroad who are willing to work in the NHS and not complain about salary and I think the BMA have just presented an excellent argument for their further use. I have heard some junior doctors talk about their careers in very materialistic terms and eye up private practice from an early stage, yes, we shouldn't be naive and think doctors aren't remuneratively ambitous.

One of the most shocking things for me is that as a Dr you meet the general public every day. It’s one of the biggest privileges of the job to meet people from all walks of life. They can hardly fail to be aware how hard it is for many of their patients right now and how the reputation of the NHS is being tarnished by poor performance currently. That’s what urgently needs to be fixed and will not be fixed by paying them more

If these self centred idiots lose public sympathy there is a lot more at stake than their salaries. It could be the final nail in the coffin of publicly funded health care. I have never worked in the private sector and I never will. If the NHS is no more that’s what would make me leave the profession

@ThePure if the NHS is worried about its reputation maybe it should stop letting non medically qualified staff act beyond their scope. For more money than a doctor would be paid. Why should your assistant be paid 30% more than you from day one. Doctors won’t out earn their assistants for over 5 years. Is this sensible ?

Resident doctors on their way up the ladder won’t outearn Physician Associates at the top of their pay scale, who have different responsibilities, for about five years.

Just like postgraduates and postdocs working on cures for fatal diseases will not outearn university administrators at various pay points for, possibly, some time. Senior schoolteachers also outearn them. Again I have never heard anyone remark on any if this. It is the price of training for larger rewards.

Why do you keep returning to this point? It doesn’t sound like arguing from strength, to say the least.

@poetryandwine why do you think people should not be paid appropriately for the job they do today, not in the future ? Should a supermarket checkout staff be paid more than the new manager because one day they’ll earn more ? Should court reporters be paid more than solicitors because they’ll never earn more ? Returning to this point makes your argument very confused.

Should doctors be given a pay rise if they can’t get a job after F2 as their earnings won’t ever be more than their assistants ?

Do a job today. Be paid for that job today.

He was v clear a year ago

Before they were given a 29% pay rise. Greedy fuckers.

Foundation Drs are there to be trained and quite honestly to start with they do not contribute as meaningfully to the work of a ward as a PA who has been there a few years and knows the ropes. I regarded it as a bonus if my FY1 Drs were of any use to me at all when I ran a ward. Mostly they were learning the ropes and I saw it as a future investment. I don’t find it unfair at all on that basis that they have a lower salary. I had a very low salary when I was a pre reg house officer back in the day which was bumped up by out of hours payments. Now many FY1 Drs don’t do nights.

These sound bite infographics are often misleading
Which grade of Dr and which grade of PA is the relevant question.

If a senior PA who’s been doing the job for years out earns a very junior Dr fresh out of medical school then that is in fact very fair.