Junior Doctors Strike

[Lanchester]

Do the Junior Doctors seriously think that they are still
respected for always putting the interest of their individual patient first?

Pausing what I see are a lot of staff without a work ethic.

My husband is a junior consultant born outside the UK and he has been appalled at the lack of application and drive amongst junior doctors in his specialism, compared to those he trained with in forrin land. He sees almost twice the "recommended" number of patients for a consultant at his level and more than all but the most slapdash seasoned old goats who have been there years.

He is still home by 6pm during the week and earlier on Fridays. He does a ward round 1 weekend in 6.

It's not a bad job really is it? And yet to hear some of his colleagues talk, they are just so stressed and demands are unreasonable and they can't cope. He just doesn't get it.

Of course I know it's different in A&E etc but no distinction is made by the whingers on the picket line who would have you believe that they are ALL slaving at the coal face 24/7. It's bollocks.

Do I believe DH over the rag tag of pinko Luddites on the news? Hell yes.

Dear Lanchester,

Next time you go to Sainsburys, tell them you have a pound. That will buy you a pack of five cookies. But tell them you want seven cookies. But you won't pay more than a pound for all of them. Report back what Sainsbury's says.

Arghh. Taxi & wheelchair job... I'm taking the self-propel and won't be able to potter round looking for them.

I'll google and also ask the cabby if he's seen them while out and about, but any suggestions for websites I can check to see where my local one might be?

I agree totally with the strike.

I am confident that my friends who are NHS Consultants are perfectly capable of keeping patients safe for one day.

I find the hysteria about today hard to handle tbh.

Consultant delivered care has been shown to be safer - it is what the DoH is attempting to move towards with 7 day working. On the other hand increasing junior doctor staffing has not been shown to improve the weekend effect.

Yet because industrial action has prompted a two day experiment with "gold standard" consultant delivered care is suddenly a bad thing and endangering patients.

And for the same patients to be cancelled two or more times reflects really badly on the admin at individual hospitals.

Ah, pic in the local paper already - they were outside the hospital car park this a.m.

I don't understand what is so difficult to understand about the fact the junior docs are not asking for a pay rise. They just do not want to work more hours for less money. More unsociable hours. And 10pm is unsociable. As someone mentioned above, the government themselves concluded the new contract was unfair to women, but hey, so what, they're only women. Fuck em.

Lanchester as people keep telling you they are not asking for more money - they are asking not to be paid less for working more hours. Although in a time of soaring costs of living a pay rise would not be unreasonable and as we all know the MPs feel they deserve hefty ones. Would you happily be on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week?

This matter of doctors' salries - do you know how much they get paid? Juniors start on £22k, rising to £30k - median wage for the country is around £26k. They are hardly millionaires. It may look like a lot if you're on minimum wage, but in the modern world it really doesn't go very far and your envy is misplaced.

I fully support the junior doctors strike: I only wish the entire public sector (what's left of it) would come out at the same time and protest at this government's idea that all public servants should become public slaves, to fund the government's and their cronies' ever-increasing wealth. There is enough money to support public services in this country, it is just that it is being allowed to accumulate in fewer and fewer hands. That accumulation is actually shrinking the whole economy as well as it leaves less and less to circulate.

It's only unfair to the kind of women who think that their childcare schedule should have a higher priority than patient care. That wouldn't wash in my workplace - all other professions manage (and yes, they are also expected to work weekends).

YoungGirl, I fear you lost credibility as soon as you reached for the kneejerk "pinko Luddite" namecalling strategy. To be honest, I'd be worried about a consultant who is getting through his patient list at twice the speed of his consultant colleagues and would be concerned about whether quality of care is being sacrificed.

I fully support the junior doctors strike

I fully support the junior doctors. They'll come for the rest of us next. Unless you're an MP or Philip Green, of course.

Forgot to add where I got the doctors salaries from - www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/16/how-much-are-junior-doctors-paid-and-why-are-they-threatening-to/

Telegraph, last time I checked, doesn't really do 'left Luddite'.

Augusta don't fear, petal - I am a brave girl.

And it was a rather Alf Garnett expression but I am inexplicably wound up by all the tooting cheering and singing from the picket line - as though they haven't just avoidably fucked over 12,000-odd people. It's despicable.

I support the junior doctors striking today.

I think we should have a voluntary 5% increase in basic rate tax and give all the money raised to the NHS, that will show if the public are behind the it or not.

If doctors don't like their contract they should get a different job like everyone else has to, we don't have a shortage of people trying to get into medicine. The new contract should have a clause saying doctors have to pay back the cost of their training if they leave the NHS.

Problem solved.

Also Lanchester. If this is brought in and then later the same is done to nursing and allied professionals I will be financially better off as I work 9-5. So I should be laughing as I will get a 12 percent pay rise. But I'm still against this.

YoungGirl, you're funny. Are you seriously asking that women abandon their own children to look after patients? Apart from the emotional angle, there are times when abandoning your own children is illegal. Can you not see that this just means women will not be able to work? As for the idea of that being an acceptable price to pay for the governments aims to work, well that idea sends a shiver down my spine. As it should yours. They're already sacrificing the poorest on benefits and disabled people as 'an acceptable price'. Who's next? And why ffs? We're not at starvation level, we're not at war. They tell us the economy is improving - so why is life getting harder for everyone? What is money for but to improve lives?

Just to make it a bit more straight forward, here is the junior doctor's contract explained in cake...

Why would mothers have to abandon their children, their father can look after them. It's hardly discrimination.

Bungo it's not my employer's responsibility to organize my life in a way that enables me to fulfil the demands of my job. If I can't do the hours then I don't take the job/cash.

Is that really so controversial? Only that's been the rule in every job I have ever had (over 20-odd years). The fact that the JD's think this some kind of misogynist conspiracy just shows how out of touch they are with the working conditions of those of us commanding similar salaries in the private sector.

If doctors already work at the weekends how are they being asked to do more?

The equality analysis has out and out said this contract discriminates against women, and, separately, discriminates against lone parents, the majority of whom are women.

Childcare is difficult at weekends but people working in retail, transport and yes doctors already work weekends. Just for everyone else Sat and Sun Re just another day. Extra pay for weekends went out in the 90s. Except perhaps in the NHS.

I don't think those of you commanding similar salaries in the private sector will be expected to work 13 hour days for 6 or 7 days a week. I certainly don't think we should be asking that of anyone. Nor should we be asking of children that they should never see their parents.

Not everyone has a dh whose hours are compatible. Jobs with real flexibility are few and far between, and ime, decreasing rapidly.

At hospital all day today.

I support the junior doctors. (And have just walked down with a box of chocolates!)