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?

Feed, thats a very snobbish reply. Just because I don't agree with you, you denigrate my opinion by suggesting I have no brain of my own.

I do believe doctors work very hard but I also believe that over their lifetime they get well compensated. In an ideal world, yes I would pay JD more but money doesn't grow on trees, and on the list of deserving poor JD are NOT at the top.
Striking is blackmail and even if you get more money, who will lose out, the disabled?

Runningwithacheesegrater - thanks for the heads up earlier. The picket line had indeed moved on by the time I got there this afternoon, and the hospital car park was its normal heaving self(!) so didn't like to gunge it up by stopping to ask.

May try again tomorrow, esp. if I can find a CPR skills sessions.

I'm off too. I'm incredibly excited at getting to pick my son up from school.

Younggirl, your husband is in a very fortunate position. His consultant job is very different from the one I hope to take up. My clinical role will be more out of hours than not, I will mainly be resident out of hours and I have absolutely no scope for private work. I love what I do though which is why I do it. that attitude is reflected in my juniors, we all know it's a hard job but we bloody love it so we put the extra in, we don't mind staying late and so on. I wonder if your husbands trainees have seen what a nice lifestyle he has and have chosen his speciality due to this rather than due to genuine love for the job? If there's a suspicion that is the case, please don't tar all junior docs with the same brush...

But running everyone is struggling to make ends meet. As a trainee solicitor I struggled to pay my rent AND eat - it was either or! And I didn't have the luxury of a pension to look forward to.

I am not saying the everything in the garden is rosy, far from it. However, I think it behoves the JD's to find out more about the compensation that is paid to professionals with similar training period before deciding that theirs are insufferably shit.

sallysparrow157, I wasn't meaning to call you a fat cat, I apologise. Sadly I was dragged down to the level of feed who insults my intelligence for having a different opinion. I am NOT against doctors, just against striking. If doctors have a genuine grievance and the public support them then a political campaign is the answer not risking people's lives.

Sorry, their terms ....

At the taxpayers expense of course.

Reminds me of a time when a patient spit in my face and said he could do what he liked because it was "us taxpayers that pay your wage". Because of course no nhs worker ever pays tax.

I pay more in tax than I do into my pension thank you!
I have colleagues than can't afford to pay into their pension because of their tax!
I'm not a snob, and I didn't mean to insult you I'm getting cross because you're not listening at all.

feedmyface on various threads on the subject of the JD contracts both Lanchester and Younggirl have held particularly entrenched positions against supporting the JD. Both don't seem to be interested in views that oppose their own and do not see the irony of their criticism that JD supporters do not see the opposing view, despite lots of informed (and not so informed) content on the subject. These positions remain entrenched therefore I believe it's a bit of a waste of breath to continue to try to persuade them no matter how well reasoned the argument. For the record we know numerous consultants of various ages and specialties and I am yet to recognise one that echoes the apparent views or job plan of younggirls DH, he seems to be at odds with the majority of consultants in our region at least.

I have read most of this thread and it is hard to get facts about what is wrong with the new proposals rather than just what people think. You might be cross that I am not listening, but I am, I just don't agree. You hear that a lot on TV Hunt isn't listening, he is he just doesn't agree.

JD say they work hard enough and can't do any more, but the new contract will reduce max working hours. JD say it discriminates against women, but it treats men and women equally, are women are just looking for special treatment which would discriminate against men. So we always come back to the bottom line, JD want more money. If this isnt the case where are the facts.

Wonky...
You sound majorly overconfident, relaxed and self satisfied about surveying all beneath you with a far and analytical perspective.
What are you smoking ? Maybe you better go go back to ordinary baccy.
in your sweeping analysis dismissing people whose opinions differ from yours, you seem to have overlooked the fact that your criticism applies at least as much to YOURSELF as to the people you are criticising - when you say "they do not seem to be interested in views that oppose their own and do not see the irony of their criticism that JD supporters do not see the opposing view, despite lots of informed (and not so informed) content on the subject."

full support from me

Well as shown here in an IPOS poll,
You guys against the JD are thankfully in the minority.

#savethenhs #proudtobeanurse #supportthejuniordrs

Winky neither I nor the other poster you mention have referred to another poster as an "idiot" though. What is that if not goady?

Most people in all walks of life accept that reasonable minds may differ. It doesn't mean that we are not listening - we are, we just don't agree with you.

If there were enough doctors, the new contract might theoretically reduce working hours. There aren't though. There already aren't, there are already gaps in rotas and doctors are already having to either work the occasional extra shift here and there, or miss out on training to cover the essentials (i.e. an SHO should have the opportunity to sit in on outpatient clinics with the consultant so they can learn about outpatient problems, but if there's only one SHO on that day when there should be 2, that SHO will have to cover the wards even if it's their allocated clinic day)

Currently there are less juniors working on weekends because a lot of the elective stuff like clinics and ingrowing toenail repair and tonsillectomies and MRI scans don't happen, so juniors just need to cover the wards and admissions.

The new contract says there will be more doctors on over the weekends. But there physically aren't any more doctors. So although the sample rotas may look ok hours-wise, unless Hunt pulls more doctors out of thin air, there will be gaps in them - a rota will be written for say 8 doctors but there will only be 6 of that type of doctor working in that hospital. So someone has to fill the gaps. At the moment there are rules in place that say the hospitals can't force junior doctors to work more than an average of 48 hours a week (if there are gaps, a junior can choose to work a shift in exchange for a bit of extra pay or a day off later down the line, the hospital can pay someone external to cover it, or the gap stays and people just lose out on teaching opportunities and study leave. It's different if it's an unexpected gap i.e. someone goes off sick - that gets covered one way or another, that's already in the contracts - I'm talking about gaps that are built into the rota as there aren't enough doctors)

The new contract wants to take away that protection though - so say the current rota is written for 8 doctors but we only have 6. The new rota may be written for 10 doctors, but we still only have 6. But now the hospital can say 'we know you've worked 48 hours this week, but we cannot employ enough doctors to fill this rota so your contract says you have to do 2 more 12 hour shifts to fill the gap'

Draylon I am no fan of Hunt's privatization plans but everything in your recent post is pure alarmist fantasy. There are MANY alternatives to the NHS and most of them don't involve the fetid corpses of the poor rotting in the street.

Running and Sally, can I ask if I have understood the arguments correctly, because as several people have said it can be hard to pick out what's salient.

Do I understand correctly, that the (main) issue JDs have with the new contract, is that it incentivises employers to schedule more hours per week. And this also leads to more erratic combinations of hours (not a straight fortnight of nights only, followed by a fortnight of days only, for example)?

When basic pay is comparatively low, and overtime rate is comparatively high, an employer has an incentive to employ a greater number of people to cover the rota (this is true in a factory as well).

But when basic pay goes up, and overtime rates go down, the employer has a disincentive to take on more people (higher basic rate), and will suffer less financial penalty for scheduling the existing employees to work more hours.

Is that essentially what's happening here?

(Although obviously more complicated, given the supply of suitably skilled labour may be different for a factory and for a hospital.)

For those talking about 'everyone else works weekends'

My sister in law works full-time in retail. She gets her rota well in advance, and works alternate weekends but not nights. If she works at a weekend she gets days off in the following week. She usually gets her breaks as scheduled, and has overtime pay for any additional hours required. She very rarely finishes after 7pm or before 9am, and has only once worked a 15 hour day.

She occasionally has to cover for an absent colleague without much notice but most of her overtime is voluntary. And the courses she is doing to help with her job are funded by the company. She does not use her annual leave on them, she has choice about when she will take that annual leave, and has a reasonable company pension scheme. If the company wants her to change locations, she can say no, and if they increased her hours, cut her pay and increased her workload she would take them to an enompyment tribunal and win.

A young friend of a similar age was a junior doctor. His basic pay was officially slightly higher than hers (F1s earn £10.97/ hour which for a 40 hour week is £22,862) but he does several hours of unpaid and unofficial overtime each week. His overall pay is substantially higher due to a lot of 'official' compulsory overtime, much of which is currently classed as unsocial hours.

I can see which of them got the better deal. And why many junior doctors are leaving rather than striking.

Ah, crossposted. I'll read yours now, Sally, which may answer my Q.

urbanfox, thanks for apologising. I'm post my 4th night shift, the last an extra, so am tired and probably being over-sensitive. I love my job and I care a great deal for my patients and their families. I also care for my junior colleagues, I see them going above and beyond for our patients, studying for exams when they could be taking a break at 3am, coming in after nightshifts and days off for teaching sessions and I don't want to see them broken, I don't want to see them leave. I care for the NHS too, I'm proud to be a part of it and I don't want to see it torn apart and sold for scrap.
It's a bit hurtful when people think I'm just greedy and want more money. I really don't.

OK, having read yours, Sally, it's also very much about the supply of doctors, as well as the employer's willingness (or otherwise) to increase the head count.

YoungGirlGrowingOld Tue 26-Apr-16 11:29:43
And I am sure your fucking cake will be a great comfort to the poor sods having their operations cancelled or unable to get help for their sick child. It's not a birthday party for fucks sake. How about showing some respect or consideration for the impact on ordinary people who are sick. Idiot.

YoungGirlGrowingOld Tue 26-Apr-16 15:53:11
Winky neither I nor the other poster you mention have referred to another poster as an "idiot" though