Resident doctors synicsl strike again

[uneffingbelievable]

The resident doctors have once again announced a 6 day strike to co incide with a bank holiday weekend.

Whilst I support fair pay and working conditions I have lost all sympathy with them. This is not poverty when you are being paid as a whole package 40-95000 gross on a 44 hr week depending on your seniority.

The arguments about lack of jobs did not stack up with more jobs going to home graduates than IMGS despite the hysteria and a huge number of home graduates not even bothering to apply.

They are coming across as tone deaf and entitled or am I missing something.

On nodal point 4 and 5 you can be on 90K+

Quoting different countries training salaries and taxation can be done for every profession in the world it is a pointless exercise.

Doctors are not poorly paid in this country

Show me an example of an st6 on £95K a year in the nhs.

If they worked 70+hrs every week, short staffed, central london, mostly all weekends and nights? Might be possible. Not the average at all. I have a very good understanding of the pay scales. As I say it’s normal for ST8 surgeons who are 10/11+ plus post med school and are at a level where they operate solo etc. Not London. Rest of UK.

You were the one who quoted the supposed pay of juniors in Europe and US? So I was providing you with a more comparable post to the £95k you are quoting. You had picked a different level so it didn’t compare.

Doctors are not poorly paid in comparison to average salaries in the UK. Doctors are underpaid in comparison to other western countries - yes.

If this is the US average, there should be a good number of examples, as well as many higher paying posts.

However….

UCLA, one of the world’s top medical schools, in a very expensive part of a high COL city. A Y9 resident is on $131,000. And that is Y9 after a Postgraduate four year medical degree, so a 35 year old.

It is similar to the Specialty Training in the UK for which salaries easily exceed £100,000 - I think the top Specialty Training salary here is about £110,000. These numbers are very close.

Only a relatively few similar examples at major medical schools in urban centres offer similar salaries.

I would ask you for a specific reference, but I suspect this is a case of bad AI rather than a mistake on your part.

For anyone who doesn’t believe me, US resident salaries are easily searchable by hospital. The most prestigious and remunerative are associated to top medical schools. Check out
Harvard, UCLA, UCSF, UCSD, U Chicago, Northwestern, Rush Medical Center, U Washington, Columbia, NYU, Johns Hopkins to get a good idea of resident salaries.

There are many other great medical programmes, but these are excellent ones in in high COL areas.

My quote was for a previous poster who said junior doctors in the US get paid $45k a year whereas UK get £95k. Simply they didn’t give a true comparison for same level of experience.

As you have said it varies region to region in USA. Completely different system I know. Point was they are not paid $45K Pa for a surgeon 10 years post med school in the USA. Which is the UK salary they were quoting.

What is your inside info of drs salaries? Is it a sibling or a close friend or ex? Or a different nhs employee?

You don’t sound the way you talk like you are a dr. Sound a bit resentful of the idea drs should get paid competitively?

Just curious!

The pro pay rise on the thread are drs/ family members of drs - which is no surprise.

It's 48h on average. This week I'm rostered 70, I'll be significantly over that. My only "short" (10h day) this week was actually 13.5h as I had to intubate a few week old baby that was sick. Our overtime isn't paid. I've still got 3x12.5h shifts left before I have another day off

That and beyond my food shop and a 30min gym class I've spent the entire of my only day off completing my portfolio admin paperwork to complete training so have had zilch rest

What’s this about overtime? Do you opt for TOIL instead?

The published information appears very clear that one or the other is to be provided and that employers who fail on this count may be subject to fines.

Are you telling us that all of this is window dressing?

I was with you right up until the part where these poor Drs have to work with obstructive nurses. No need to shit on another profession. Nurses are the absolute mainstay of an NHS hospital, have equally difficult conditions, relatively poor pay, and have relatively (much) less power. I couldn't do my job without my nursing colleagues and I'd stand alongside them rather than picking them out as an example of why it's just so hard to be a doctor that we need more money.

If @Destiny123 is rostered today, it isn’t likely she will have time for MumsNet.

I don’t have the sense she is being disingenuous by failing to mention TOIL. If her employer is not paying overtime, that looks like a breach of contract.

Are any doctors here familiar with this situation?

Are unhonoured contracts a current source of frustration? A historical one? Is this a rite of passage that is perceived differently now, compared to the past, or is the issue (if it is one) simply another sign that the NHS is coming apart at the seams?

In any case, I cannot see how a new contract will help with this. I would prefer for the existing one to be honoured, though.

@poetryandwineI think there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors with this. Some doctors might be offered overtime and not toil. I think, as the general public, there’s a lot of interest in getting the waiting list moving and having more efficient and effective A&E. We know we have many part time doctors and organising staffing is a nightmare. I don’t know the fine details of the contract, but these are national contracts. Each trust doesn’t make up their own contractual obligations. It suits striking workers to paint a bleak picture. Obviously. That doesn’t mean it’s the true picture. It’s smoke and mirrors.

Then they should have done much more thorough research. But if they didn't bother to do that, then once at medical school (and up to speed on what being a doctor entailed) they could very easily have transfered to a different degree, if they believed the system was unfair, too brutal, underpaid.

They will have top class GCSE and A Level results, after all. So if they're so unhappy with their prospects as a doctor, why not do something else? STEM? Finance?

God knows, medicine is massively over subscribed, so plenty of equally bright and clever students never get a place at medical school.

This is something many parents do though...or their DC just have to move away to an area with cheaper housing and travel into work.

I think this strike is a sign of how stretched the system is, and it's really not good. I have lived in the same area for a very long time and I can see how bad things have got since the pandemic. 2 years ago, I was sent to A&E by my GP with symptoms which were dismissed and no imaging was done. No letter followed either to recommend the GP carry out any further checks. Turns out those symptoms were linked to a condition which got properly diagnosed only recently, and ONLY because I went private to get the flipping imaging done. Two years. Now I will need fairly major surgery in a couple of months. That really worries me about how much is being missed nowadays because unless you present with something that is immediately life-threatening, there are many many gaps that you may end up falling through.

1ladybird - US residents also work on average 80 hrs per week - so yes they get paid more but compared to UK doctors whose average is less than 48 they should get more but less for the same hours.

I am not anti resident doctors being paid appropriately - but none of them are being paid badly.

Any generic work schedule for an ST 6 on basic 40 hrs per week with 4-6 horus of over time will come in at over 90K.
Most resident doctors ST/CT3 and above are on 65K+ I am sitting looking at their GWS right now!

And no doctor in the NHS does not have time to have a drink or grab a sandwich - sorry that is ridiculous. Time management and heal theyself doctor come to mind. Even those doing 13hr operations , stop take a break and come back - even if only 20 minutes - the hyperbole on here about what residents do is amazing.

@uneffingbelievable Hyperbole indeed. It suits the strike narrative though doesn’t it. We all know some days and events in a hospital mean a day is ultra full on. We also know that’s not every waking moment. We also know there’s overtime and new contracts for Toil or overtime yet people don’t factor that in. Years ago the difference between a professional and a worker was overtime payments. Professionals just worked when it was required. The doctors are very unionized and now behave like BL car workers and frankly, you cannot believe what they say. Certainly not the lies about earnings and never factoring in the huge public contribution to their pensions that others would literally “die” for. It’s not acceptable for the public to be held to random by well paid doctors for whom we shell out £billions for their pensions and their training. It’s for the best return on ANY degree and yet they just want more and more. I hope the government stands firm. We need defence spending!

I couldn't agree more about the hyperbole. The job is nothing like as difficult and exhausting as it used to be, and the stuff about pay is palpable nonsense.

The average annual earnings in England of CT1/2s to August 2025 was £70942, for F2s it was £55383, and F1s £45754.

When you consider the calibre of some of these characters in the orange hats, this seems more than generous.

yoi are being obtuse. Its just not possible to fully understand the nuances and pressure of being a newly qualified doctor until you become a newly qualified doctor not even as a medical student let alone a 17 year old with limited access and contact to intimately know what it'd like to have responsibility for all the patients in your specialty overnight with minimal supervision or support. Even less possibility to know how 10years in the future what the job conditions, environment and pay scale might be. It was unlikely med school applicants in 2017 would have predicted the open access to international medical graduates to specialty training positions would happen.

@Wishiwasatailor I completely disagree! The rhetoric about how awful it is to be a doctor is relentless. Never ending for years and years. A young person interested in this career would have to live in a bubble to not hear the deafening squeals! What do the student doctors think the job is? Do they ask no one?

Of course the answer is they do but don’t always see the bigger picture. Some undoubtedly end up in crappy Trusts or, they might have doctor parents who love their jobs. Many dc of doctors carry on the family line of work! Like vets. It runs in families. They might even know other doctors who, whilst accepting the challenges, recognise the positives. It’s not all doom and gloom.

I wasn’t very clear, @OhDear111 .

I realise the contract is national. But there is language about how those who violate it may be subject to rolling fines. I wonder whether this is the Trust or the hospital, or what?

And is it serious, or just boilerplate? @Destiny123 should be getting TOIL or overtime, as well as that lovely 37% supplement for working unsocial hours. Unless she is being disingenuous by failing to mention something, that isn’t happening.

I agree a weakness of the union’s presentation has been their misleading arguments around pay - not quite lies, but close. I know enough about residency programmes in America to take an exceedingly dim view of the nonsense Melissa Ryan was spouting in the last round about how resident doctors could go there for double pay. (They can, but not to residency programmes - to service jobs that cannot otherwise be filled, and are no part of career progression.)

The public have a stake in knowing whether the NHS contract with resident doctors is being honoured. If it is not, we all have a problem. But not one that will be solved by a new contract.

Why does something being a vocation mean that you should be underpaid and under resources.

Fairly clear you're not on the side of Doctors but do you think we have enough Dr's? does it worry you at all that so many leave the NHS?

Bottom line is, with 70m people and an aging population, we need Doctors, they are the Consultants of tomorrow and we don't have enough coming through to replace those leaving/retiring...

Then what?

In Govt spending terms, to settle this dispute would be relatively cheap and then we can all get on with reducing waiting lists and getting a grip on preventative health.

@Wishiwasatailor junior doctors never "" have responsibility for all the patients in your speciality overnight" although it does seem to be the narrative that they tell their credulous mothers. In fact patients are always the consultants responsibility, whether they are there or not. The junior doctors responsibility is to decide whether or not they are competent to look after the patient in front of them, and if not ask for help. That is partly how they learn.

@Alexandra2001 Well anecdotally loads leave but loads come don’t they? It turns out they are cheaper to employ. I’m not a fan of the profligate nhs as it’s currently run. It’s difficult to know if we need more, but we need to be far more efficient. We don’t use facilities efficiently snd don’t see anywhere near enough patients due to poor organisation. Far too many people go into hospital who are elderly because they are failed in the community. I want to decide when I die having seen the appalling nhs close up. It’s neither kind nor effective for the elderly and I want to be spared going anywhere near it.

I’m afraid you’re living an alternate reality and not as clued up as you think you are 😆! Look up the pay scales. We are non London ST8 95k due to uplift for weekends/ extra hours/ weekends. Surgical

What location are you? London? That would be only way ST6 earning that much. You didn’t answer that before so suspect you are.

Absolutely staffing that tight in many locations around the UK that it’s that busy. How many shifts do you do a week as a resident dr?

Well there's been huge amounts of exactly this information all over the Internet. Especially 'sad face' junior doctors going on Tiktok to moan about their plight.

DH and I were at university with plenty if medics, so I know it's often very tough and long hours. But not all of the time and certainly not forever. And ultimately, they will earn far, far more than 99% of the rest of the population + a pension that is beyond the dreams of just about anyone.

Medicine is tough. But so are most of the sought after professions. DD2 will work in corporate finance for one of the Big Four. During 'busy season' she will be required to work regular 100+ hour weeks. It's beyond brutal, but just the nature of the beast.