To wonder if the Doctors strike will still go ahead next week?

[Netcurtainnelly]

Does anyone know when it will be decided if the strike will be called off because of the flu next week?

What do you think about it?

I hope they don’t cancel it. They are being treated like shit, the health secretary is sat in interviews slagging them off and the “deal” is beyond a joke.

What’s wrong with the deal? Do you think they need MORE than a 29% pay rise?

Because their pay should be restored to pre-2008 levels.

Why should they train here, saddle themselves with student debt, work in atrocious conditions and know that even after all of that they won’t be prioritised for jobs?

Where's the money going to come from?

Do you think everyone’s pay needs to be restored to those levels? Every public sector worker? Every UK worker? Because with 4 people applying for every job, if it was in the private sector the pay would be halved and they’d still probably be able to fill all the roles at that ratio.

Are you as highly qualified as these doctors? Saving lives?

I am yes. And I earn what a doctor earns. I don’t save lives because that’s not my job. I don’t expect have to pay doctors more for saving lives because saving lives is part of their training. It’s part of the job. This whole ‘saving lives’ thing is just emotional nonsense!

People saying consultant will step in are absolutely kidding themselves.
Perhaps in normal working hours yes they will but out of hours they cannot be compelled to cover and seeing as they are sick to the back teeth of the residents whining and are themselves knackered then no they won’t. It’s the weekend before Christmas. They have lives.

Most of them will because at the end of the day they care about their patients.

The last couple of strikes have had minimal impact in our trust, the consultants and ANP’s cover and it’s actually better. There’s also lots of F2’s that don’t have jobs happy to do locum work as well as a few of the regs who have chosen not to strike anyway.

I dont know where this will end, they’re going for maximum impact and disruption this time, the week before Christmas and longest strike yet, so if the government doesn’t budge where do they go from here?

I also agree with PP they also risk the loss of public support with all the scarmongering about flu in the press.

Not all doctors are members of the BMA.

I think any that strike should be sacked. They've had mammoth pay rises compared to others. I'm private sector and the idea of "pay restoration" compared to what I should've earned since 2010 had huge things like covid, wars etc not occurred is comical.

Okay so unless you’re a private sector doctor it’s not really comparable is it? Junior doctors are left in charge of hospitals all weekend. They have huge amounts of responsibility. I’ve never known a society resent doctors like the UK.

@sleepyjessieI don't resent doctors. I resent doctors who don't turn up to work thus killing people during flu season.

Starting salary at £38k is quite nice even in London in this day and age. £38k around the average wage across the entire country. And then next year it's £44k.

Like why is this bad?

This years flu started in early October - it is only now with talk of a strike that the government is laying it on thick.
There would have been a lot less patients in hospital with flu if people had taken their vaccinations when offered - yes I know it isn't as effective as in previous years but would have helped reduce intensity and numbers. When less than one third of primary school age children returned their permission slips for the nasal spray this year - some because their parent had heard that someone's auntie had gone for a flu jab and was dead the next day (was actually run over by a bus but that wasn't mentioned)
Btw the standard working week for resident doctors is 42 hours and they do evenings nights weekends and bank holidays as rota'

Because it is for 42 hours and not thirty five like most people

What’s killing people is the government underfunding the NHS and not giving doctors jobs.

£38k for 42 hours a week and the level of responsibility they have? In America they’d be earning £48k minimum. In Australia it’s the same.

Add on their earning potential in those countries would be so much higher. £38k is nowhere near a decent living wage in this day and age. But accepting it as a “good” wage is why we’re being held back.

None of the junior doctors I know (lots) want to strike.

I have heard that seriousness of the flu outbreak has been talked up but that, even so, a lot of junior doctors feel uncomfortable about striking at this time.

Streeting said on LBC yesterday application ratios are 4:1 and will come down to 2:1. How do you think he worked those ratios out?

Below are the 2025 application to job ratios.

2025 had 20,803 International Medical Graduates and 12,305 UK medical graduates applying for approx 12,000 training places. The number of training places was 12,743 I. 2024 but 2025 figures have not been released.

So purple you want residents to be paid more which in turn means we will need to pay consultants more.

An ST7/8 on 44 hours per week will gross 95+K.
A consultant of 20 years experience with all the responsibility and then some gross 144K - we really are not respecting the experience and knowledge of the consultants who have been paid signficantly less than their residents, done more hours and had less stable training rotations than the current bunch of whinging residents. They also were not guaranteed a training place, ahd to take awful trust grade jobs, move aouond the countrr for work and pay their own exam fees.and if qualified since 1998 paid university fees aswell.

Sorry thisbunch of residetns do not have it worse than the most recent generations. I have heard some of our overseas doctors say hwo they will move anywhere orund the country for a job, they leave their families and go and work, coming home at the weekend to see their children. Many of the overseas doctors who came over in the 1970s and 1980s worked all hours, all over the place in these so called inferior Trust grade jobs to ensure their families survived and thrived. Their children are now the consultants of today and they remember how hard their parents worked to provide for them. The ungratfeul attitude of so many to overseas doctors who ahev propped up the healths ervice for decades is offensive

In Australia and the US the healthcare is insurance backed. Ours isn’t. We pay what taxpayers can afford. And tax payers aren’t going to pay loads more just for pay rises for already well paid public sector workers. Is insurance backed system a system you’d like to move to? As a non-medic who’s been waiting 3 weeks now got an ‘urgent’ CT scan I’d love it. The NHS model is broken. But I don’t see all these medics whining about pay campaigning for an insurance backed system (which would help them get a pay increase).

Any time you mention it to an NHS worker they explode in anger

I just find it SO hypocritical that they want the wages of an insurance backed system but funded by the state. Laughable!