To think the junior / resident doctors are greedy, selfish, entitled & lazy?

[SpottyAlpaca]

So the resident doctors are out on strike. Yet again. Patients are being inconvenienced & treatments delayed. Yet again.

They have received a pay rise of 28.9% over that last 3 years, which is by far the highest increase of any group in the public sector. Very few people in the private sector, who ultimately pay the doctors’ salaries, have received anything like as much. Very few of their patients will ever earn as much as a resident doctor. Yet still it’s not enough and they are demanding even more.

Doctors do an important job and deserve to be paid properly for it. But the BMA’s current approach is completely unreasonable and deluded. They talk about “pay restoration’ to 2008 levels but that’s completely unrealistic. The country is poorer now & simply can’t afford it. AIBU to think they should get back to work?

I have a pretty good idea how the system works. To get a training post you have to apply for one. At the end of FY2 (which they were gifted) half of juniors fail to do that.

even the least popular training posts (usually a&e) has 41 applicants for every post.

I am fed up of them striking personally

It's not arguing a point or nuanced. It's just a fact that a five-year degree builds up significantly more debt than a three-year one, all other factors being equal. They have to pay their loans back irrespective of where they live. Only consultants work privately and for the most part they do NHS work in parallel. Other graduates can earn significantly more than doctors too.

Such as?

What about the teacher 4 year degrees?

Training I agree has to be sorted and jobs going to foreign doctors when so many uk doctors want them. They had a deal though but lost it in their greed for more money .

The least popular training posts have fewer than 1 applicant for every post. The least popular is usually GU medicine.

A/E, with 14 applicants per post, is three times more popular than internal medicine.

Ludicrous to strike. Entitled, deluded, tone deaf and displaying quite astonishing ignorance of simple economics.

When I met DH he was a junior doctor and I earned about 20% more than him basic, as an assistant solicitor in a large firm, after a similar training period. He received a lot of uplifts e.g. for unsociable hours, overtime etc whereas my deal was "you will work as long as it takes for no extra pay" which is standard in the white collar private sector. In fairness, he also had to fund exams.

Fast forward 15 years, and DH is at the top of the NHS payscale at £200k and brings in about half that again (variable) in his private practice, which (despite doing 12 PA's for the NHS) he has time to do in the "normal" M to F working week.

Yes, he works a bit in the evenings, but nobody earning those salaries can or should expect to finish at 5pm. I certainly don't, although my basic is now only about half of his NHS salary.

There are loads of benefits to NHS employment that are forgotten in these disputes. Most women (myself included) don't have the option to work part time at the same level post-children - in medicine, that's a given (as it should be). Most lawyers - and all of those with whom doctors wish to be compared when it comes to salary - who want to actually see their children have to make difficult choices about nannies, career progression and what it means for their salary and outgoings. With medics, it seems to be "we can afford for one of us to work 0.6FTE" and it's job done, while the waiting lists keep growing.

And the NHS pension, despite reform, remains absurdly generous. DH's is partly "old" and partly under the new system that everyone regards as crap, but is still streets ahead of anything in the private sector - mine is a drop in the ocean by comparison despite saving for most of my career. The UK cannot afford the massive liabilities created by public sector pension schemes, every actuary knows it, but every government kicks the can down the road.

I would support a deal for the doctors recognising that some would prefer "jam today" rather than a pension and allowed them to opt out in return for a pay increase. No actuary would advise this, of course, because there is simply no better deal out there. So we keep limping along pretending we can afford nice things....

This is part of the problem.

Some specialties are far more popular than others for no particular reason

As I said in an earlier post i remember medical students at university looking down their noses at some specialties (like psychiatry) as not proper medicine

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@Monty36 - "... Money.
They are living in the past. Tony Blair gave Junior Drs as they were called a huge pay increase in 2008. And they keep referring to it. By saying that if they were paid the equivalent now their pay would be xxxx. Except that was then and this is now. Governments cannot give 2008 equivalent pay rises each year..."

Yes.

All doctors got an exceptional deal out of the new contract in 2008 so I suppose it's hardly surprising that they want to use that as a benchmark for pay.

But it was exceptional then (just before the banking crash too) and can't be afforded now.

The thing is, they knew the salary scale and promotional opportunities when they commenced training.

You do realise their basic starting salary is under 40K. A Personal Assistant earns way more than that in a Corporate City environment. I think your concerns on salaries need to be focused more on what the Heads of the operations at the NHS earns rather than those that hold up the NHS at the bottom rung.

Don’t think they are lazy, but self entitled, certainly. I appreciate their union is fighting for Drs pay and other unions should make their own cases for pay restoration, but they do come over as seeming to think they are more entitled than others. Streeting certainly didn’t come over as happy with the attitude they show, wonder if he regrets how quickly they pandered to them when they first got into power

exactly, mouth almightyl work a month alongside them then come back to us with yr opinion….

Wow they are worked like dogs huge responsibilty esp when consultants and reg’s leave for the day. They hardly get a break and work way over contracted hours. Would you work unpaid with no breaks?

Yes. I think Labour thought the BMA leadership would roll over with gratitude at how generous Labour had been to them.

Some hope!

Not to mention the years of studying they have to pay for

Some finance, tech, management consultancy, law roles. What about teachers? I said some, not all.

Yeah but your personal assistant probably won't have the opportunity to earn up to £200k (or whatever the top consultant rate plus extras is) and enjoy a gold plated pension.

Now if they wanted to trade more pay today for less generous benefits longterm...

You need to check your facts as I speak from experience.

I think you are disgusting and ignorant.

We are haemorrhaging doctors to countries which can offer better pay and working conditions. I’d rather pay them a bit more, hopefully improve conditions in hospitals and healthcare (this will benefit everyone) and keep our doctors here!

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They have over twice the student debt (£80,000) after studying for 7 years. "Junior doctors" are up to 10 years called. Every other country pays them more. Do you think we shouldn't pay people more to save our lives and our families lives? How much would you pay on the spot to save a loved one from a heart attack/stroke/embolism? We should be paying them double!!!! £40,000 a year is NOT enough!