Resident Doctors Pay

[OpenPeachSnake]

This has to be one of the most inappropriate strikes ever- when resident doctors are earning 3 years after qualifying £68000+ and 8 years after qualifying £95000+ to be demanding a 22% pay rise .

Giving up pension for more pay is not the answer either.

What they should be campaigning for, is capping of the interest rate on student loans down from 7% to 2.5% - that I would support.

Before people jump in and say my figures are wrong:

Average 47.5 hrs per week
Nodal 3/CT1 Nodal 4/ ST6-8
Basic pay 49909 70425
Over time over 40 hrs 9670 13645
ie, 7.5 hrs
Enhanced pay 8.5 hrs 3925 5542
Weekend allowance 2496 3522
Availability allowance 5634
London Weighting 2162 2162
Total 68162 100930

From the BMAs own calculators.

Apologies my table failed - but the first figure is that of a yr 3 doctor and the seoncd of a yr 8 doctor.

Totals £68162 and £100930

I’m a teacher on just under £50,000 in a subject where head of department would be an extra £10,000. So a doctor only being on £8,000 more than that sounds crazy to me. They have much more student debt and carry a lot more responsibility.

Is it not a bit unfair to include overtime in that calculation?

I’m not sure I’m understanding the argument behind your table. Does that not mean that pay is £49k per annum (take away taxes) at 3 years after qualifying? Not including all the extras, which may not be applicable, and not including London weighting, which most won’t get.

I was earning about that a few years after qualifying in my definitely not as demanding career.

I think you have just demonstrated that they are underpaid. I used to run a medical sciences business and a good graduate could be earning £50k within 3 years of graduation from a 3 year medical science degree. Being a resident doctor is a dogs life. Overworked, under supervised, huge student debt and having no control over where they get sent to train if they can secure a training place at all. They can earn far more with a better life by working in Canada or Australia. If the government don't address this they will never fix the problems in the NHS.

I think people in professional jobs that require a lot of study, achievement, success and responsibility should be paid a lot. They also have to work 12+ hour shifts, nights, weekends etc - and continue to study to specialise.

Doctors wages would be vastly higher if the health system was private- and their wages are not brilliant if compared with what could now be achieved in similar professional roles.

The part of their protest which misses the mark is that everyone is feeling skint, not just doctors, and all of our wages haven’t kept up with the rising cost of living - so there is limited sympathy.

The lifestyle people can afford on professional wages has degraded quite spectacularly over the last twenty years - what was once a big house, private schools and ski holidays on one wage is now vastly more modest.

The problem is that everyone has had their wages eroded over the past 15 years and resident doctors have already had a 29% pay rise. Why don't nurses deserve the same? Or teachers?

If they were striking about the nightmarish difficulty in getting F2 jobs, or the interest rates on student loans then I would totally support them.

Relevant.

Absolutely, it’s the fact they seem to feel they are unique in this situation and somehow more entitled

Yes, basic pay in Y3 which is the first year of specialisation is currently £49,900. Automatic step rises mean that basic pay for Senior Registrars is around ££84K. These step rises are like nothing else I know in any sector.

These figures do not include substantial overtime pay, pay for unsocial hours, London weightings, etc. I think OP is including that kind of thing in her headline figures, but average pay data and surveys show that they virtually all take it.

I am fine with this: they are highly skilled and dedicated. Last year’s uplift was good. But in light of the real world, this year’s looks greedy.

It has never been valid to compare salaries in the NHS, the Civil Service or academia ( I am an academic) to the private sector. Apples and oranges.

Doctors also have the best pension scheme going.

@poetryandwine “These step rises are like nothing else I know in any sector.”

£30k increase between grades isn’t unusual in law / finance / consulting at this level.

“Being a resident doctor is a dogs life“

THIS!!!!
If I had my life again I’d never choose a medical career… anything but.

Thanks. But are they automatic? I thought they were merit rises

Well, I'm a cancer patient whose care was disrupted during last year's strikes, and given the opportunity I'm going to have a very frank but polite word with any striking junior doctor who I might encounter in the near future.

Unfortunately the BMA now seem to be led by a pair of vacuous imbeciles who are more concerned about (ahem) 'international matters' than they are about the wellbeing of UK patients. Most junior doctors don't support them.

I worked all my life in the public sector, with vulnerable people, and would never had considered striking. It is a vocation. People will die due to these strikes - or, as in my case, have serious care postponed due to their choices.

I am totally and utterly disgusted with the BMA. Shame on them.

They aren’t automatic rises though, at multiple points in training you have to apply for the next stage, there are bottle necks with way more applicants than posts, and it’s becoming increasingly competitive with admission exams, portfolio requirements, interviews etc. Then to get through the actual training there are (expensive, difficult) exams to pass, and various competencies you need to achieve to move up to the next stage. It’s definitely not automatic and it takes plenty of people far longer than the minimum.

I honestly don’t know how I feel about the strikes but I do think it’s a bit disingenuous to say that within x years of graduation someone would be on y amount, because that’s not guaranteed by any means.

I agree the bottlenecks are a terrible problem. The exams are competency based, are they not? So if you demonstrate the competency you get the pay rise?

That is very different to competing in a free market.

I cannot fathom why resident doctors must keep moving from one short term contract to another after F2, however. I lived in America for a while and the Americans place nearly 45,000 F2s in stable resident doctor in positions, usually for three years, on Match Day. Over 90% of US educated Medical Graduates get one of their match choices, about 2/3 of US citizens who are IMGs make a match, and under 60% of noncitizen IMGs make a match.

In general I don’t believe in American superiority but they do this right, on a much bigger scale. Why can’t we?

Agree with many of the posts. Most experienced doctors are on good money.
I, like a pp, work with vulnerable people and also have had my pay eroded.
To my mind it would make more sense to reduce the student debt for medical students.