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?

It's not just working weekends, Twowrongs, although again why are working conditions deteriorating so much? It is about working weekends AND a full week.

Urbanfox - junior docs work a 48 hour week. This is made up of weekend and weekday day and night shifts.

My shifts are 12 1/2 hours. I worked sat and sun night and I'm working thurs and fri day so that's just over the 48 hours.

If the safeguards which protect me from working more than 48 hours are taken away I could be made to do 7 nights in a row, or finish nights Monday morning, then do days Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday. For the same pay.

When have to work at the weekend I get childcare. If I couldn't get childcare I would have to consider getting a different job. I don't want to go back to misogynistic world where only men were allowed to work part time and women had to stay at home and look after the kids. Did women doctors really not know hospitals were open at the weekend when they went to study medicine?

So still struggling to see where the discrimination is?

urbanfox just because lots of people want to get into medicine doesn't mean that those people would get the grades to get into medical school or get through the course or survive foundation years.

Either you want the job to be attractive to the best people or you don't.

Personally I hope they just don't sign the contracts. See how they manage to staff their rota's in August with no staff.

And do history, maths, English graduates have to work for the state or pay their fees back in your scheme??

We don't get extra pay for weekends per se. We get extra pay because basic pay is for a 35 hour week and we work a 48 hour week. The extra pay is a little higher if more of those hours are antisocial

i have had months where I've worked 4 weekends out of 5 and months I've worked 2 weekends out of 2. My paycheck is exactly the same each month.

I'm going to stop answering the goady fuckers.

They are being asked to do more as there is no extra money for more staff. So the only way the rota can be filled is by existing staff increasing their hours (unsafe). Either that or reducing staffing in the week while increasing at weekends (not an option).

The problem with childcare is the variation in hours each week. Childcare on a regular basis in normal hours is relatively easy to find. Childcare which changes every week and includes hours before 8am, after 6pm and at weekends is harder to come by. Especially for single parents or where both partners have such variable schedules.

The point about pay is that a paycut in antisocial hour pay affects emergency specialities disproportionately. These have a higher rate of antisocial hours and higher number of unfilled posts. The way the governments offer works is to reduce antisocial hour pay and increase normal pay but the increase in normal pay doesn't cancel out the cut and the more antisocial hours you work the bigger the paycut you will get.

Did women doctors really not know hospitals were open at the weekend when they went to study medicine?

Such as this one ^

I think we need to listen more to each other on this thread, Who knows we might learn something...

Re pensions. My police inspector friend just retired on a generous final salary pension at 46. I'm a lawyer on a typical lawyer's earnings of between £30-40K per year (happy to evidence this) and cannot afford to pay into a pension - my actual pension pot seems to decrease in value most years! There are no employer contributions.

BUT the doctors starting work don't have the same gold plated pensions that those retiring now enjoy. That's what I'd like to learn more about.

I think we may be looking at Dr pay for those in their 40s/50s/60s which is a bit irrelevant. When does a new dr start earning, what is their pension and when do they start to build it up?

[thanks in advance]

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.

I guess you don't know many city lawyers then Bungo. Our trainees work 13 hour days without blinking if that is what clients demand. As do I. The difference is that we are expected to make a profit and retain clients. Whereas the NHS can afford not to give a fuck...

Urbanfox - it isn't just the fact that we are working weekends and nights that's the issue as far as childcare is concerned. We all knew that when we started working. The new contract makes the rotas even more unpredictable than previously so you may be working a couple of nights then straight into weekend days then back onto nights. Unless you have a nanny or a partner working normal hours you will somehow need to find a childminder who can take your child on a random pattern, day or night (bearing in mind you need to sleep between nights too). It's hard enough as it is, but there's generally enough flexibility in the current rotas that you can swap out of shifts you've no childcare for, know when you're working nights so you can arrange for that, the new rota doesn't give any of that flexibility

Whereas the NHS can afford not to give a fuck...

And this one ^

You just have to look on the higher education section to see how straight A students are fighting to get into a medicine degree, the job is very attractive.

That will be why only the rich can afford to become lawyers nowadays then. And your profits are why the poor have no recourse to legal protection nowadays. It is all part of a whole, and the whole is a two-tier world with a few extremely rich and most struggling, and the whole becoming impoverished as a result of the many being unable to access opportunities. Such as all women now being unable to study medicine because hospitals open at weekends.

Just had a look at some of the new contract details and all working hours and patterns are being reduced. WTF are doctors striking over?

Lyndie - many doctors are dedicated and competent - BUT many are neither of those.
Paying enough is good but paying more is counter productive.
To be a doctor you need to be reasonably intelligent, but you do not have to be super clever. (unlike say quantum chemistry / physics, or some advanced software developers).
Paying doctors too much money has already tended to skew their motivation away from patient care.
Doctors need to have a caring, empathetic, and dutiful attitude to their patients.
Its not rocket science....its just medicine

The degree is attractive. The job isn't. If it was we wouldn't have such a high attrition rate post graduation.

We do not want the NHS run as a private legal practice making profits out of people's essential healthcare. That's the whole point. It doesn't work for most people in the US, the most unequal on the planet, and it won't work for most people here. Or do you think you can afford the thousands in care fees people have to pay over there?

*Doctors cost the taxpayer up to £610,000 to train

Bungo as I have said before on here...

I grew up in a council house, got an assisted place, got to university (with a grant) and got a job in a decent firm... I am not rich, but equally I don't expect the world to hand me things (like childcare) on a silver platter either.

You on the other hand seem to think it's your employer's responsibility to put you in a position to do your job. It really isn't.

For those posters who may be edging towards thinking junior Drs are paid too much and should suck it up I suggest you look at he alternative salaries on offer to the highest qualified gradates from the best universities. Alternative careers in City, accounting, law all pay far far more than being a junior Dr at a far younger age.

Future graduates thinking of going into medicine will just choose better paying careers. Hunt may win this battle but every gradate thinking of what career to follow will increasingly not choose medicine and in a decade we will suddenly face a crisis.

To be sure, there are certainly many inefficiencies in the NHS. Junior Dr time on the job could be more efficiently used but you don't cure that problem by making them work longer for less pay. That just ignores the basic lack of decent NHS management despite the ever growing hordes of NHS managers csting ever more.

Op and all the others.
You are idiots if you do not support them. The Junior Drs have the NHS and most imporantly the Pts at the heart of everything they do.
This isn't all about money, this is about not working people so they're on their knees and ultimately unsafe.

"Doctors don't need to be very intelligent"? I've heard it all now. That'll be why you need all those a levels and science backgrounds and a constant supply of the highest quality information.

You can have stupid doctors if you like. I'll take the current crowd, please.

Today 13:21 BungoWomble
You are misquoting your own salary source!
Sounds like the salaries are between £ 27,000 and about £60,000. Although about a year ago one JD I know said she was on about £70,000 So I am not sure if she was exaggerating.