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?

As a pp has said we collectively have contributed to this situation because no political party seeking election feels able to say "vote for us because we want to raise your taxes to pay for a chronically under-funded NHS."
I have looked at the claims about Jeremy Hunt. He did not write a book but co-authored a booklet. He may have changed those views-it was 11 years ago. I think it is scaremongering and a serious allegation to suggest he wants private health care to give jobs to his cronies & obtain a consultancy for himself. I believe that most politicians are idealists who enter politics because of those ideals. I see no reason to doubt David Cameron when he says he values the NHS which cared for Ivan the little boy that he lost.
sally sparrow your posts have been informative thank you. I have had to stop work due to poor health so I am a bit out of the loop.
Lanchester I have read some of your points with interest. I disagree about part-time work. I think more doctors would stay in the profession if they could job share. I also feel there could be more done to offer refresher courses to those who have been out of work to care for children, parents or who have been ill.
I think a trialling of the new contracts seems a sensible compromise.
I would be happy to write to Mr Hunt with possible options. Do we know for sure that there are insufficient doctors to cover the new contracts? If there was a protected contract of 72 hours would that be acceptable?
There are currently more female junior doctors so we do need to consider their interests.
FWIW my hubby is a qualified accountant acting as head of finance for a small company. He has no company contributions to his pension, no company car or health insurance. He has been made redundant in the past and taken on very low paid work and in a previous company which he and the directors were trying to keep afloat they took on the cleaning themselves ( including the toilets) so I think people in similar positions may struggle to support the jd's especially when they hear that pay is a sticking point. He readily admits however that if he makes a mistake the worst that can happen is that he could cause his company to collapse and people to lose their jobs but if a jd did that it could lead to a tragedy.
Thank you nurses and doctors for the jobs that you do. To the majority I know it is a vocation as it was for me

Though the juniors are beginning to tire me out. Its non pc to criticise the juniors these days. They are a demanding lot and its very tempting to go and leave them to it. I get fed up of covering their interminable needs and mistakes and unfinished work. There. I've said it.

Actions speak louder than words, in response to apparently Hunt being a young lad who might have changed and Cameron being someone who lost a child. Both have consistently ignored concerns from HCPs; from allowing the quashing of safe staffing guidance and the abolishment of student nurse bursaries to ignoring the stafford report recommendations and this junior doctor fiasco.

I would be happy to write to Mr Hunt with possible options. Do we know for sure that there are insufficient doctors to cover the new contracts? If there was a protected contract of 72 hours would that be acceptable?
I'm extremely glad to hear that you would. But your letter won't mean much amongst the pile he has ignored. He has actually walked off from people wanting to speak to him. People have camped out to try to speak to him and express their concerns. He said my doors will always be open. They've been firmly shut :(

funny It sounds like your problem is bigger than this issue and more like something personal to yourself. I'm sorry if you have some sort of professional fatigue - it musnt be nice.

Sadly I think again we are up against limited resources. I think the working tax credit was a debacle. I think it is needed by some families but 2 wages of £39 ,000 do not need working tax credit IMHO. (going off on a tangent a bit)
Sorry to learn that Stafford report has been ignored. I have to go to bed - I am dropping! Goodnight Grays

Yes you're right, which is why it's questionable that with the limited resources we already have for our 5 day elective (7 day emergency) service, Hunt thinks we can provide 2 more days of elective.

Goodnight scarlett, nice speaking with you

funnyGoodnight to you tooand

Nice exchanging views with you too Grays and good luck and

Thankyou scarlett Have a good sleep. And just to clarify I'm not a JD, I'm just akin to a Physician Assistant.I read back my posts and I can see where my use of 'we' made that confusing I mean we as in NHS staff. Sorry about that!

graysanalogy I don't suffer from professional fatigue at all. I disagree with your view of the situation and you clearly want to make this personal in a negative way.

It is people like you who sometimes make me want to ditch the support I have for the juniors, people like you who simply cannot accept that their own view is not the only view and that intelligent experienced enthusiastic others can think differently.

On the tv a junior doc had been vilified on twitter for not supporting the strike. Each to his own I say. Thank goodness there is diversity in the world I say.

funny I was trying to empathise as it seems your issue isn't with the strike but with the junior doctors as a whole

I get fed up of covering their interminable needs and mistakes and unfinished work

doesn't sound like you're just talking about the strikes.

100% support for the junior doctors.
They are striking to protect all of us. to them. Thank you for what you are doing to protect our NHS.

Lanchester funny how you ignore every point I have made other than the pensions.

Is this because you perhaps realise you are wrong?

No, I do not support what they've done.
They should remember how lucky they are to have had such a good education, paid for by the tax payer and all taken for granted.

This is all about money.!.
The GMC have a lot to answer for, they are a disgrace.

What about their patients, all those left waiting for months before they can have the treatment they've already being waiting for months. What do they care!.

Junior doctors do not have their education paid for by the tax payer 😕

It sounds like there is some sock puppeting going on here.

The number of cases postponed is considerably less than those postponed due to pressures in the NHS over winter, every year. NHS staff work in a system that is constantly just on the verge of not coping.
All doctors have made mistakes, and all doctors will have had these mistakes quietly corrected by a colleague. That is the nature of medicine. Previous generations did it for us, we now do it for them. Making sure that they learn from their mistakes (as hopefully we did, and do) is an important part of continued learning in medicine. No one is perfect. The stresses and strains of the job are very different to what they were years ago, you cannot make meaningful comparisons between the two. And I have worked the old and new rotas as a junior. Neither were brilliant, they both have advantages and disadvantages. The working patterns currently proposed, however, are appalling in their lack of appreciation for human physiology and rapid cycling through days, nights and twilights. As previously said, the hsj is reporting that managers feel the new contract is unworkable with the current number of doctors.
The one profession is to do with all doctors together, supporting each other. Juniors were seen as a soft target, the ultimate aim is to make all NHS staff work more for less.
I have previously posted links to current pay and conditions for doctors and other NHS staff, including info on the NHS pension scheme as it currently stands, in order to make sure the facts are available. They are in the public domain, anyone can look them up.
I appreciate everyone has their own opinion, however the pay part of the dispute is what the government I'd focusing on (it makes good sound bites) however the areas of disagreement were much more than this.
Also, there is no need to change the current contract with such urgency. I don't see the reason for the rush. Every change made to the NHS costs millions (we only recently wasted millions on the changes due to the health and social care act, and the NHS IT project to mention just a couple). This is not a cost neutral proposal due to the need to employ a guardian, the changes that will be needed in HR and payroll and the increased consultant time required to deal with exception reporting. Finally, you can't increase pay for the majority, whilst keeping a neutral pay envelope, and you can't decrease hours whilst saying more doctors will be available on more dats of the week. It doesn't add up.
The manifesto commitment completely changed the nature of the negotiations, and should be funded and supported appropriately. (As the manifesto actually says).

Roseanddagger. 07:28
"Junior doctors do not have their education paid for by the tax payer"
??????/ !!!!!!!!!!!

Who pays for your education / training then ?
Who pays the toilet attendants in medical schools? Who pays for the buildings / power / insurance / mortuaries / libraries / theatres / mentors / tutors / lecturers / ........ Etc
Maybe basic economics 101 should be compulsory, unfortunately there probably isn't a basic common sense 101 course available though.

Hibbledibble
I did not answer all your points because you were answering points that I had posted.
It seems like we just dont agree about quite a few of those items. That's ok. We don't have to agree. Thank you for your point of view.

Those are medical students, who now exit with more debt than in the US. Research grants also help pay for their training, and there is tax payer funding. For all university education. I don't see English graduates getting the same flack.
As a junior doctor you have your salary for work done, and you pay for your courses and exams. Most juniors have a proportion of time a week dedicated to teaching, but unless they are not contactable during this time, then they are still working, and actually get called out frequently to attend to patients, write up meds, fluids, etc. A lot don't get to teaching as they are seeing emergency patients, and are working on rotas that don't have the capacity to allow them to get to regular teaching sessions.
Their salary is paid by the tax payer, but I think there is an element of 'I pay your wages' here, which is true for everyone who has a job. Someone pays the initial money for their wages. You are getting value for money, the NHS is actually one of the cheapest health systems in Europe (I'll try to find the link).

Here is the link www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/health-care-spending-compared

A good way to find out if jds pay for their education is to look at what they would be paying for that education in the countries that so many of them are emigrating to work in.

If they aren't going to stay here, they should have to pay what the education would cost elsewhere. They shouldn't be able to have their cake and eat it at the state's expense

At the moment they are benefiting from the best of both worlds-comparatively cheap medical education, then the option to go and enjoy private practice with all its benefits in a place where the local doctors are using a larger proportion of that higher salary to pay for their education. The state can't afford to do that for any profession but particularly not for doctors because they're very expensive to produce.

Counter-arguments about high student loans are irrelevant because their costs should be compared, as I've said, against how much it really costs to educate a doctor, and how much medical students have to pay in the private practice world that the cash-strapped NHS is somehow supposed to be keeping up with.

The cost of training doctors is an interesting one, and not simple to answer.

Training doctors costs the NHS money - but it simultaneously saves the NHS very large amounts of money, because they get to employ cheap "apprentice" doctors (remember that these "apprentice" doctors may have been in training for 20 years and have 15 years of work experience).

I think if you were to give the sums to an economist to do, they might conclude that juniors actually pay the government for the privilege of becoming doctors (especially if you were to include the opportunity cost of becoming a doctor - ie the large salaries in banking and industry that are foregone by straight A students who choose medicine as a vocation).

Lanchester is that then an acknowledgement that you have nothing constructive to add, as perhaps you were misinformed when you made those assertions? You have posted in a forum yet seem unwilling to discuss. I'm not asking you whether you agree with me or not, I'm pointing out the multiple inaccuracies and fallacies in your assertions, and giving you the opportunity to reply. As you have no retort I will take that you are just being goady, and have no ability to back up your assertions.

You seem like the minority I saw on the picket who did not support junior doctors: unsupportive but not able to discuss the facts of the matter. I remember a great quote a teacher told me at school 'minds, like books, only work if they are open'. Perhaps if you were willing to have an open mind and critically appraise the facts you wouldn't be so unsupportive.

You allude that you have had a bad experience with a doctor in the past, which seems to have made you quite upset. This is a pity, but I can assure that the vast majority of junior doctors are hard working and care very much about their patients.

This is not about money, it is about opposing a contract which is fundamentally unsafe.