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?

There were less jobs in the NHS and there was no restritcion on oversea doctors applying - I remember in the late 1990s seeing a consultant get 508CVs for one SHO job -90% were overseas, 5% were european and the rest British graduates. That really stuck with me - so when you say competition was not as bad - not true.

Fees came in 1998 and many people were paying fees before that aswell if non EU medical graduates.

The interest rate is the crime here for all students not just medical students

I have heard doctors who used to fo the 100-120hrs per week work and got paid for 40-50 - that this was their paying back the cost of their training, so no not actually fees but a hell of a lot of working for free which this generation no longer need to do

I largely agree with this post, as well as other points that you have made.

I would add that to March 2025 the mean annual pay of F1s was £43,275 (for F2s it was £52,310). As a yardstick, the Law Society sets a recommended minimum of £24,320 for first year law graduates, and the Bar Standards Board £22,019. The other obvious difference between medicine and law is that a law graduate is not gifted a training post or pupillage, in fact the average law graduate is guaranteed not to obtain one.

The BMA would have us believe that after FY2, medicine is not so different in this respect, because there are not enough training posts and too much foreign competition. This point is repeated ad nauseam. However, as I think you pointed out, F2s also opt for "non-training posts" and apart from lacking structured career progression these are really no different. Indeed the proportion of F2s not applying for "training posts" has been steadily increasing, at the last count (4 years ago) 56% of F2s did not even apply for a training post. Nonetheless, after 3 years 90% have entered speciality training. So the BMA story that doctors are underpaid or unemployed in significant numbers is frankly dishonest

However, they are disgruntled. In a 2023 survey of medical students' attitudes, only 17.26% of surveyed students were satisfied or very satisfied with the overall prospect of working in the NHS. The problem seems to be that at the point of entry to medicine we are selecting people who, once they've had time to reflect, don't want to work, or at least not here.

BMA have just announced that strike is going ahead.

Not surprised. His behaviour has annoyed the doctors even more.

Weaponising UK Medical Graduate Prioritisation while thousands of UK medical graduates are unemployed is outrageous. Meanwhile A&E is a war zone.

I intensely disliked Jeremy Hunt but Streeting takes the biscuit.

Where did Streeting get a ratio of 4:1? From ST4 stats?

I cannot believe how irresponsible this is!
I wonder how much public support they have for this action?

Agree, disgusting.

How irresponsible is the government for not monitoring the impact of dropping The Resident Labour Market Test in 2020?

How irresponsible is the government to allow a minister to promise UK Medical Graduate Prioritisation is April, June and July and do nothing?

How irresponsible is the government that allowed 63% of applicants to UK Specialty Training to be International Medical Graduates leading to UK Medical Graduate unemployment. These doctors have 100k of debt and cost the taxpayers 250k to train. Meanwhile the NHS is on its knees.

How irresponsible is the government to not increase the numbers of doctors per capita and increase number of beds?

It is the BMA that is going to get the blame for countless flu deaths potentially, not the Government.

Patients are being looked after by consultant colleagues and fabulous allied healthcare professionals.

All the general public hears is flu pandemic and they already got a pay rise.
The technicality of recruitment is beyond the more average person.
And if doctors want to turn into flu deniers and potential racists, it just doesn’t work on a common sense level.

@PurpleFairyLights - it is a massive gamble and so close to the Covid enquiry. You know this will backfire massively if there is a death toll and heads will roll. So let’s hope for everyone’s sake it is not a massive bloodbath.

195 other countries prioritise their own medical graduates. Are they racist? The UK did until January 2020. If our doctors want to work in Australia or Canada they are offered the leftover jobs that their medical graduates do not want. Are those countries racist or protecting their investment?

Is it too much to ask to have the chance to work in the country you were trained in? While accruing 100k in debt?

The BMA are blackmailing the Government and general public, however anyone tries to defend it. They already got a good pay rise. The recruitment issue needs sorting, but it is not worth killing people over.

It was not a pay rise it was pay restoration over a few years. This will bring them to 2008 levels of pay.

I suggest that Wes streeting gets together with the unions or whoever to sort out the recruitment problem and soon! If it’s not just about money, this might help at least. It sounds as if he has kicked the can along and left it too late now.

I don't disagree with any of these issues, they all need to be addressed, but honestly, all this strike does is put people's backs up and make them less sympathetic to the BMA's cause, not more. They just look entitled and selfish.

“It was not a pay rise it was pay restoration over a few years. This will bring them to 2008 levels of pay.”

You see that kind of semantics is what annoys people!
What next?
Will train drivers be back for more too?

It is the truth

If this turns out badly, all that will happen is that doctors won’t be allowed to strike in the future, it will be like the police. Personally, I would not be willing to push that hard.

The fabulous allied healthcare professionals who almost universally get paid significantly less than their resident doctor colleagues and whose shifts are at least equally arduous and who have the same issues in terms of jobs and career progression?

This is a terrible look for the resident doctors, however valid some of their concerns/ grievances are.

Did those doctors take part in the vote?

You could literally say this about anyone

You are not a doctor and have no idea of what they have to put up with without Streeting's disgusting behaviour. They don't trust him and the general public do not appreciate them.

This isn't going to make the general public appreciate them any more.