To think the BMA have misjudged with another doctor's strike? Thread 2

[Locutus2000]

Rolling this over as people still seem to have something to say but no new poll.

Original post

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

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.

If Wes rolls over on this pay demand then it will be consultants and nurses next. He cannot afford to do it. They have had a generous settlement already and it is churlish and tone deaf to continue to insist on ‘pay restoration’ Patients will be damaged by this strike.

I think the plan to continue as much business as usual as possible is because Wes knows that a lot of Drs won’t actually strike. The impact will hopefully be limited. If business as usual does carry on then I am afraid resident Drs will have scored a huge own goal in proving that we can do without so many of them. They will give ammunition to the PAs they so deride and others with extended roles like nurses and AHPs by showing that we can manage without them.

Yes, it will be a massive own goal if that happens. This is being handled so badly by the BMA. Debt forgiveness would be a serious plus for so many young doctors, especially those starting university from 2012. I hope that the BMA doesn't piss that opportunity up the wall too.

Also, the BMA might have a tiny bit more credibility if they stopped massaging pay calculations. It's been a nonsense from the start.

I totally agree with this. They would be crazy to squander that option.

Wes never discussed student loan repayment. The press did, he didn't. Was never on the table.

Maybe if the NHS didn't pay their assistants £10,000 more doctors would feel less aggrieved.

So much disinformation on here it's quite staggering. But amusing to read how so many rich people don't like the NHS.

Crabs. Keep crabbing.

(Awaits incoming abuse and rudeness but doesn't care as won't read it).

Wes discussed debt forgiveness with cameras rolling, so that’s factually incorrect.

Thank you. That is a very telling comparison.

Twas ever thus.

mumsneedwine this is currently a perfectly civil discussion. Please don’t try to be provocative. I think it’s been shown over and over again on these various threads just how thin your grasp of the detail is. And I’m referring to being shown by dismantling your data and giving it context or depth, not mere opinion, and by the introduction of more relevant data too.

Agree with @Sevillian . The BMJ itself has also found reports in the mainstream media of proposed debt write off credible.
(BMJ 2025; 309: r1516)

specifically citing the Guardian The Times and the Daily Mail have also discussed this.

And no else else has resorted to capitalisation either. It’s entirely unnecessary when a statement is good, and capable of being supported with credible evidence.

Who doesn’t like the NHS, @mumsneedwine ? I cherished it when I moved here. At the moment it is not fit for purpose, but that’s rather like saying a beloved grandparent needs lifesaving surgery.

Am I prepared to pay more taxes to make that happen, whether in its present form or modified? Absolutely.

Do I think that, with hospitals full of outdated equipment literally decaying before our eyes, staff shortages and underpaid HCP of all ranks, drug shortages and outrageous waiting lists costing lives as the tip of the iceberg of problems, a second consecutive substantial - no, massive - pay rise for resident doctors is remotely close to a top spending priority? Absolutely not.

And if the lack of a pay rise causes people to chase $149K pa in the backwoods of steamy Georgia (USA) or icy North Dakota as some are threatening, good luck to them. It is a move to a profound service job of the highest order. Someone needs to do those jobs and they are being recruited internationally because Americans aren’t taking them. I will say again that desirable American residency placements are offering comparable salaries to the British.

I am not up for a two tier university debt system where some supposedly worthy jobs get their debt written off.
What I think resident doctors probably need is more flexibility in their pay package. Most are smart enough to take more upfront to pay up uni debt and put less into their pension, perhaps that is the kind of flexibility they need.
The NHS is a behemoth and has very rigid pay structures and times have changed. The old structure of working your way up to consultant plus huge pension eventually just does not work for the young anymore who need to get on the housing ladder somehow. Giving them more flexibility without it actually costing the state more overall, should not be controversial.

As I understand it, loan forgiveness (though discussed) was omitted from the offer to avert strike action.

Promises to improve working conditions, etc on condition that the doctors call off the strikes seen as jam tomorrow perhaps!

Hope the issues to do with the NHS get sorted soon.

My idea is for a national service plan available to virtually all graduates.

Not suggesting a Theatre graduate would necessarily be able to work in Theatre - though if the country took the view that it was worthwhile to place Theatre graduates in Arts focussed teaching jobs in inner cities, I think that would be lovely. The larger point would be to align graduate talents with the needs of the nation.

For avoidance of doubt, my idea to provide national service in exchange for debt relief would be optional.

Bloody ridiculous ask.

You need to compare the average weeks as well. It really isn't ridiculous!

Band 5 nurse
Starts on basic £31,049 for 37.5 hours so that averages to £15.92
All time on Saturday (midnight to midnight) and any week day after 8pm and before 6am - time + 30%
All time on Sundays and Public Holidays (midnight to midnight) - time + 60%
https://www.rcn.org.uk/employment-and-pay/NHS-Employment/NHS-conditions-of-employment

FY1
Starts on £36,616 for 48 hours contract so that averages to £14.67
There is a weekend allowance of an additional 0-15% depending on how frequently you do them
https://www.nhsemployers.org/system/files/2025-02/Pay-and-Conditions-Circular-%28MD%29-5-2024-R2.pdf

But it's a training contract. I started out in a highly highly competitive career. My hourly rate would have worked out as less than that. I wanted to be there and knew that all my work would pay off, as it did. If I had only been motivated by an hourly rate then I could have been a delivery driver.

It is the same in law, HE, etc. I think anyone who knows this is likely to find the F2-F2 persistence in these pay comparisons distasteful.

F1s are not even fully registered, and their pay has risen 50% faster than that of band 5 nurses; there is no justification for this.

What they are asking for now is obscene.

I wonder if munsneedwine is bold enough to name even the main areas of so-called disinformation which she said earlier are being promulgated on these threads.

Of course she would need to counter any evidence which has been posted with better evidence to the contrary.

I think that won’t be possible so I anticipate either no response or a response which fails to answer the question (because of lack of a convincing answer).

And yes, especially in juxtaposition to the position of the nurses, the current demands do look obscene.

I’ll put my penny in if that’s ok, although probably not as articulately as some. I’m a very experienced crit care nurse, been qualified donkeys years, still work mainly clinically so come into contact with docs of all grades most days. I’ve had a few good natured ‘spats’ with presumably resident docs on social media about the strike.
Couple of things I’ve noticed. A certain arrogance and overegging the role of docs despite the fact that many AHP now have extended roles and have assumed many of the roles that juniors once did like arterial cannulation, prescribing, use of defibrillators in arrest situations.
I was told with a serious face that medics are the cleverest and hardest working of all professionals, that they run the wards and in fact the entire hospital single handedly. And not just by one poster. Really ?
That they deal with life and death decisions on a daily basis, conduct difficult conversations, lead resuscitations hour to hour. Some do obviously but an FY1 would hardly be doing that, hell, most can’t prescribe fluids or cannulate initially without asking the reg. I’ve had juniors tell me how ventilators work, fiddling with settings literally after a few days experience and more dangerously, without communicating those alterations. To me things changed with Covid. A reluctance to actually interact with patients, hence the ward rounds done in the consultants office. Instructions documented on the computer but god help us, not actually communicated to nursing staff, resulting in incidents where stat doses of medication have been missed. Ten years ago it felt like we were all a team, now the boundaries between nursing and medical staff seem more distinct. Maybe it’s because I’m more cynical and older, I’m not sure but there’s definitely been a change.

Thank you.

The focus on F1 base salary is disingenuous. It’s only for one year and ignores practically mandatory additional payments, to say nothing of the fact that at least one Consultant on the thread agrees with you that senior nurses are more valuable HCPs than they are (on the whole).

A non HCP PP (as I am) asked earlier who supervises PAs: do you know? I don’t think the relative salary of doctors in training and PAs is any more relevant than the relative salaries of postdocs and university professional staff - ie completely beside the point. But for those resident doctors who are unhappy about being paid ‘less than our assistants’, is it even true? Or are they paid less than the ‘assistants’ of Consultants and Senior Registrars?

Thanks Platosrevenge. Very well said.

I was told with a serious face that medics are the cleverest and hardest working of all professionals, that they run the wards and in fact the entire hospital single handedly. And not just by one poster. Really?

No, not really. Nurses are often far cleverer that these young doctors and it's not uncommon that they have to prevent the errors that the dweeb doctors are about to make. Plenty of nurses can sort the sheep from the goats but it's not right to be releasing some of these not very competent doctors onto the wards. And boy, do they like passing the buck when something goes wrong, yet was of their own making.

We really do need to reduce the number of medical places and get back to the times when it was actually quite hard to get a place at med school.