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.

Excellent post.

Unfortunately on these threads there are some very unpleasant attitudes to our young doctors.

There was also a lot of inappropriate remarks regarding the standard of UK medical education (if not Oxbridge) and the calibre of UK medical graduates. All very elitist which thankfully the UK is moving away from with widening participation.

There was also a lot of kickback about UK planning to re-introduce UK medical graduate prioritisation (like 195 other countries).

The House of Lords debates on the bill were interesting as it raised the topic of how long international medical graduates remained in the UK after finishing their UK funded specialty training.

Striking is not the way to solve these problems.

How would you suggest the problem be solved then?

Particularly interested in how you would solve the problem of decades of pay erosion and loss of decent working conditions.

Doctors don’t want to strike . It means losing pay for one thing.
It’s clear that people feel very strongly to risk annoying senior colleagues , missing training time, losing money , not to mention the impact on patient care and delays in appointments and operations.
Surely that shows how unhappy people are !
I can’t work out whether the OP is a hospital manager, allied HCP
perhaps physicians associate , medically retired / ex - doctor with an axe to grind, politician or lives under a bridge.

Where have I slagged off the resident doctors?

i find this campaign offensive and tone deaf that anyone can claim poverty and hardship when earning what they do.

I have said I would support campaigns for reduced student loan interest rates, better working conditions for all in the NHS and much more.

Career progression which has only been tagged on more recently to the campaign is a tricky one. Yes, there does need some reset but for any 17 yr old to think they can do 5 years of medicine and automatically be ready at a said time, not need to expand their skill set by taking a year of something different is naive. To be guaranteed a job from 23 till retirement, in the area you want, to not have to move and be paid well is not available to any other job - so why do resident doctors think they are unique. The way some people talk of Trust grade jobs as inferior is missing the point that we all learn in any job and in medicine any experience good or bad is part of our greater development as doctors.

What I do find deeply offensive is to hang the death card onto people who have no say in where they can access healthcare. This is morally wrong.

I work with fantastic resident doctors, consultants, management, admin staff, AHPs and yes that does include the blighted physicians associates and I work with some very rude arrogant aholes in all those groups aswell. They all deserve better working conditions - resident doctors are no different to every other cog in the wheel of healthcare.

So yes I support our resident doctors in many ways but no I do not support a strike fought on its current points - I find them offensive.

It 100% happens. You can get toil if you get your consultants permission to stay late in advance (which isn't always practical if you're in a cardiac arrest etc as I'm an anaesthetist), then complete a huge great form to explain that you stayed late and why you couldn't have averted it and what you did to get home sooner, then have a meeting with the dept lead (where you're often made to feel lazy or inefficient for not getting the work done in the shift in the instances of medicine and surgery), and then they do paperwork, then HR hopefully sign their paperwork.... and then you have toil.... ie they make it so damn difficult to claim it, that we dont

I compare the behaviours of some residents to those of my recently graduated nephews and nieces.
25 yrs old, graduated with a First Class honours degree after 4 years of studying. Currently working 3 minimum wage jobs whilst trying to get a foot hold in her chosen career. Has just managed to secure 2 days per week as an entry level job covering maternity leave, after almost 2 yrs but will keep the other two jobs to have enough monies to survive on. No pre planned tax payer funded study leave, central application system, career guidance etc.
Current pay circa 20K

Everyone is struggling resident doctors are not the only ones, to many other young graduates -doctors have it easy and her debts are not much short of doctors.

@PurpleFairyLights if you are going to refer to previous threads (not encouraged by mumsnet) at least try to be accurate.

The so called inappropriate remarks about medical graduates were not about any that were not Oxbridge, but some from new medical schools opened since the expansion of medical school places.

Students from medical schools using PBL instead of traditional teaching are more likely to be sanctioned by the GMC, and less likely to be able to pass their Royal College membership exams. (essential for becoming a consultant) This should be a worry to everyone, and you can't brush it off as snobbery (although I know you will try).

The fact is that previous academic attainment is a predictor of outcome. The medical students who enter university with three A star A levels in traditional science subjects statistically will do better than those with 3 A's. Some medical schools don't require chemistry, others will take them with a PE A level. Draw your own conclusions, but 25% of A level students get 3 A's. In the past no one would have thought that 25% of 18 year olds were cut out to be doctors.

As for your remarks about "loss of decent working conitions" don't make me laugh. A large percentage of the consultants who will be picking up the juniors work while they have a holiday over Easter will have had considerably worse working conditions when they were juniors. When was this happy time when they had decent working conditions?

I find your elitist posts inappropriate. My impression is you are not a supporter of widening participation. Thank goodness the UK is moving in the right direction on that. Streeting is keen on it too so you will have to put up with it.

I am accurate in what I reported and my impression of you and a few others that all had the same outlook.

Consultants of today have no student debt and lived in the hospital as resident doctors. They also had the support of the firm system and had more training opportunities.

Let's stick to the facts, shall we?

1 in 4 A-level candidates achieve the academic requirement for entry to medicine, there is nothing "high calibre" about medical students per se.

Nearly all standard-entry medical degrees are 5 years. "Our resident doctors" don't in general spend 6 years at university.

Graduate-entry medical courses are 4 years - and these attract people who typically have very sketchy A levels, who are then taught little of the medical sciences by people with sketchy academic backgrounds.

On graduation a job is guaranteed with strictly limited responsibility for which, in 2024-2025, the actual average remuneration was £45754. This exceeds the salaries of law trainees, who had a less than one in a hundred chance of securing their posts.

There is no other career that is as unselective, well paid, and well supported. However, if you go into medicine with a history of weak academic attainment, and then skip the basic medical sciences, you will struggle regardless of what anyone (or the system) can do to help. Striking over it will only make everyone else's life more difficult.

Happily I am completely indifferent to what you find appropriate.

Widening participation should be based on social measures, absolutely never academic ones.

And Streeting will be gone in two or three years.

If I remember correctly you are not a doctor but sit in judgement of resident doctors.

I am a patient and a taxpayer. I do not sit in judgement of anyone, but I am keen on the truth. I don't think that you are a doctor either, but that doesn't stop you from having an opinion, does it?

Did your offspring ever manage to get a job?

You have no idea.

In answe to your question with unpleasant undertones. My son always had a job as you well know.

"Consultants of today have no student debt and lived in the hospital as resident doctors."

Er yes they did have student debt - loans have been around since 1990 and fees since 1998. so 28 yrs of fees. Those graduating in 2003 are now consultants and did have debt, as did many before that who did not qualify for free under grad education.
What is wrong is the current interest rates and set up for those loans - so campaign about getting that changed!

ER no they did not all live in hospital and it was not all free. You paid a sliding scale dependent on your on call rota.

I do find some irony in purple mentioning they were resident doctors - yes some of them were when on a 1;3 with internal and prospective cover - they were at work more than at home in those days. Unlike those who now call them selves resident but do shift work of no more than 13 hrs - that is not resident hence you do not get accommodation.

Widening participation is good for any profession but it has to come with a degree of intelligent ability to learn, process and succeed in the check points along the way. If we have to dumb down a standard because some people can not achieve that standard then they should not eb doing that job. Medicine is getting more complex not less - so the standards of yester year are the bare minimum - there is no argument to lwoering the rpevious standards just because x,y or z,

@Marchesman It’s interesting to see how a well oiled PR onslaught skews views and facts. No one bothers with facts do they? These degrees produce the best paid of all graduates. As you say, they all get jobs. There can be bottle necks but it’s a job for life, and after getting on the degree, grads are set for life with the best pensions and lots of opportunities to work part time. Other highly paid jobs are significantly more competitive and msny doctors would not like them or thrive.

It's to do with there not being enough speciality training places after the foundation years I think. my son's friend is an FY1 and percentage wise there are significantly less places than when he started medical school. He's going to have to fight for a job. My son's friend loves what he does, and is not so fussed about the money.

3.8 applicants per one speciality training job are actually good odds.

Also there are trust grade jobs where you can learn and get paid

How does any other non state run profession solve its' issues? If people don't like the pay don't join. It's not rocket science. Rocket science is a lot harder.

The problems about career progression and debt are real. I support the resident doctors regarding these concerns.

If indemnity is an issue, there is surely a way to solve it outside of the salary structure. In the same way the employer could absorb other professional costs if these are real obstacles.

Medical student debt is special only because the length of study means there is more of it. An overhaul of the student loan system would serve medical students as well as everyone else, and pressing for this would gain much more public support.

@Marchesman is a doctor and thoroughly informed about medical education over a period of decades. Whether you agree with her or not, she brings a worthy perspective to the conversation. Slagging off her and others who do the same does the strikers’ cause no good whatsoever.

As an academic I think the focus on pay restoration is misplaced. I think the public might get behind focus on career progression and the loan burdens, especially wholesale reform of the latter.

The whole public sector suffers from lack if pay restoration. If resident doctors are slightly worse off than others (and they are) it is from a high 2008 base that has now largely been restored. Teachers, nurses and others doing a bit better in percentage terms started from acknowledged underpay.

There were mostly enough specialty training posts. In 2024 there were 12,743 training posts.

In 2025 the problem was 20,803 IMGs (International Medical Graduates) also applied with around 12,305 UKMG (UK Medical Graduates) giving a total of 33,108 applicants for around 12000 training places (figures for amount of training places in 2025 not published to my knowledge).

So the UK had the ridiculous situation that 63% of applicants for specialty training were IMGs that were applying on equal or more favourable terms to UKMGs.

Thankfully the government saw sense and the Medical Training (Prioritisation) bill is now law. The UK had UKMG prioritisation until January 2020. 195 other countries prioritise their own medical graduates.

However, the damage it has done in the form of unemployed UKMGs is yet to be quantified. The UK spends 4 billion a year on medical training. The BMA stated in August 2025 that 52% of F2s had no work.

The House of Lords stated that 30% of specialty training posts go to IMGs and that statistically IMGs are more likely to leave the UK workforce within 6 years of joining compared to UKMGs. This could cause problems in the future with skills gaps.

Purple - you keep on saying this but 59% of speciality training jobs went to UK graduates last year but a significant number of uk graduates did not even bother to apply.
So you were more likely to get a training post than an IMG which is how it should be.

How many unemployed UKMGs are there, who did not bother to apply for speciality training or a trust grade job, research or as has been done for years taken a year out in Australia?

This year is different - so your point is now irrelevant.
Some resident doctors are not suited to the careers they wish to pursue, some change their minds, some wanted toexpereince other specialities , some want to travel before deciding it is not as simple as saying every UKMG must have a right to a trainign job because that is just ridiculous and breeds lower standards

The BMA stated that 52% of F2s who responded to a survey did not have work, it did not quantify whether they had applied, were on parental leave etc Quite frankly with the current level of misinformation coming out of the BMA regarding these strikes who would believe what they say anyway.

There are not 6250 unemployed resident doctors in the country

Why not watch the House of Lords debates? Or check the BMA statement saying 52% of F2s had no work to go to?

The impact will be felt for years to come. It is always sensible to look long term as the UK legislation will not fix 5 years of UKMGs not being prioritised.

Possibly not but approx 6000 are not in training so not progressing their careers and taking whatever work they can find. This is not a good look for the country.