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?

Affect!
Honestly I can spell but have to rely on predictive text due to RSI

RomComPhooey Sun 01-May-16 12:50:31
"Anyone else find they are just scrolling past lanchester's posts now? "

You probably skipped past one earlier post then !
Here is an extract regarding BMA / JDs'

fingers in ears - I cant hear you - LaLaLa attitude:

Saturday 10:26
........they could see that the Luvvies [the BMA and their HCP cheerleaders]
were receding towards an [opinion] event horizon - beyond which the Luvvies would be in an alternative reality all of their own.
The Luvvies vaguely wondered why they could hear no opinions but their own - but on a comfortable gravy train they were loath to question themselves rigorously.
Other opinions faded and dimmed then suddenly - POUF there was no more dissenting voices - no information could penetrate their reality. ....

Lanchester
No I am not complacent, I am just stating the obvious

For me,, the dialogue so far is like this:

Bma:. This is a30% pay cut
Government: this is an11% pay rise

me: hmmm? Someone is not telling the whole truth?

BMA: trust me I'm a Dr

Me: um... I think I can figure this one out myself thanks < checks it out>
me: hmmmm, you are both telling crude lies about salaries, this is not a good start... Bloody drs they are paid lots already
Dr on mumsnet: I am sorry for the misleading rhetoric. The problem re pay is that Saturdays are being rebranded as weekdays
Me: hmmm, ok I'm listening again. I can see that would be really upsetting
Dr yes and we have a monopoly employer throughout our JD career so we cannot forge alternative career paths
Me: I see. Hmm, so you already lack autonomy and this will make it worse
Dr: yes
Me:,< thinks hard>
Angry right wing poster:. Crush the militant unions!
Me: hmm, thanks for that
Angry politicized person: what!. I heard you mutter that drs are well paid! We are paid less than store managers! don't you know I got A stars at A level!. And we are doing this for you, are you Jeremy Hunt, do you want everyone to die? Etcetc ad nauseum. It is people like you who are the problem!
Me: Much of what you say is naive, and your comparisons are offensively ill- informed
Right wing poster: exactly!. Crush the unions!
Me: hang on a moment right wing poster... Just because there are flawed arguments doesn't mean the government is right

BMA: actually its not about pay. Drs don't care about pay, we just care about patient safety
Me: oh it's you again.... Forgive me, I would rather ask a sensible dr
Dr: hi, I am a sensible dr.. I care about my pay, my conditions and the quality of service I am able to offer. I understand that the three things are not always aligned.
Me: oh I am glad you are back, can you explain the safety issue?
Dr: yes, here are a number of illustrations. There are not enough staff or resources for the current system, let alone the projected system
Me:< listens carefully>
other dr: I will move to Oz for a massive salary and easy conditions!
Other posters: how dare you move we paid for your training you are arrogant!
Jeremy Hunt: smash the union!
Australian recruitment consulant: there are not many jobs in australia any more
Me: < getting confused again>
me so we need more drs?
Everyone: yes
Me: how?

Miss Triggs best summary yet. I'm as confused as you are. And no that doesn't mean I now want to be bombarded with posters trying to persuade me that their view is the right one. What ever the rights and wrongs I do think that the government is going to 'win' this one.

Nobody has explained yet where the extra beds, porters, cleaners, kitchen staff, phlebotomists, theatres teams and so on are going to come from

Not only that but community services as well. A great many of our patients need social and community input, a lot of which cannot be arranged at weekends. So you'll end up with more people stuck in beds all weekend whilst waiting for it.

BoatyMcBoat Sun 01-May-16 13:07:50

"You talk blithely about taxpayers and what we would like etc. Can't you just say it's what you want. I'm a taxpayer, and I don't agree with you, you aren't speaking for me, and you aren't speaking for a lot of other taxpayers as evidenced by this thread."

BoatyMcBoat - so do you feel that any of the following are just "BLITHE" then ?

Taxpayers as patients being in hospital over weekends where they have inadequate access to middle ranking and senior doctors, and where their care is effectively put on hold and they feel as if they are waiting in a warehouse shelved pending the convenience of staff.

Constant small NHS failings and quite frequent large scandals showing a failure of the NHS

here are a few:

Southern Health - (86?) unexplained deaths

North Staffs - MURDER mile of NEGLECT
Mockery of the word 'Professional' by management, by doctors, and by nurses.
People desperate for water having to drink the water out of flower vases.
and a MAJOR MOTIVATION for the current UK Government to seek major reform in the NHS to improve medical safety and standards or care by doctors and nurses.

Alder Hey - Redfern Report, revealed that
for a period of t least 8 years
Dick van Velzen, the Chair of Fetal and Infant Pathology at Alder Hey had ordered the "unethical and illegal stripping of every organ from every child who had had a postmortem."
there were reports that Dick Van Veltzen kept the head of a child stored in a jar.
There were thousands of children and foetuses body parts or whole bodies involved in this scandal.
Some parents later had to bury their dead children 3 times or more as body parts were identified and returned to the families at differing times.
However, apparently on 15/12/2004: CPS Advised there should not be a prosecution of Prof. Dick Van Velzen over those failings at Alder Hey

Cambridge Addenbrookes consultant - Paedophile Myles Bradbury, 41, jailed for 22 years for 'grotesque' abuse of children including cancer sufferers as young as eight.

Also, there was some other NHS paediatric consultant in the news a few years ago for drugging and sexually abusing children in a trailer in the hospital grounds - not sure what that hospital was.

Bristol Children's Hospital - Heart scandal

Blackpool Maternity Unit inadequacies

Beverly Allett - NHS nurse murdering children at Grantham hospital

Harold Shipman - no one seems sure how many hundreds of people he murdered.

Liverpool so called 'care' pathway (death sentence) - no informed consent in many cases - and relatives not even told at all.

etc etc etc

mainly due to INADEQUATE monitoring of standards,
and persecution of whistleblowers
and declining sense of the primary responsibility of HCPs
being to the patient in their care as an individual human being.

I was pointing out that you don't speak for me or for many others on this thread. And yes, your use of the phrase "tax payers" wasblithe, you were using it blithely.

Miss Triggs, Thankyou for your post. I think we are unrealistic about "real world jobs", and I freely admit that, despite every one else of my generation in my family not being medical, including my husband, I have very little knowledge of private sector working. As a community, we have made these comparisons for years, and it is really hard to get out of, particularly when some of us have seen friends leave medicine for the city etc and make more money. They work damn hard too though...
You can only compare with what you know. I think it is also hard to appreciate when you are outside medicine the lack of autonomy involved in being within the NHS (whatever your role), and the emotional toll of the jobs we do. Whilst some would like to believe we are unaffected when our patients don't do well, or are upset, or mistakes happen, this just isn't true. Or at least it isn't for most people (no doubt, as in every walk of life, there are some who seem to have the emotional intelligence of a gnat).
After all the scandals mentioned above, changes came in to try to correct them. Interestingly, Harold Shipman wouldn't have been caught by revalidation (he was apparently loved by his patients, some of whom, despite all the evidence against him, still think the world of him). Interestingly this is probably a failing of the GMC, as he had been taken off the register in canada, and that wasn't deemed to be important. Some of these were in the 80s and 90s when the culture was very different. We live in a different world now, because of these scandlas, Mid Staffs, and others. Part of the problem is underfunding (that is not paying for nurses etc so you get one HCA and one nurse to 12 patients, its impossible to look after them properly, feed those who need feeding etc. ). The safe staffing review by NICE was shelved during this governments reign though, so that's been put on the back burner, because safe staffing costs money (even if these staff are on minimum wage, it will still cost).
However, whilst these are all terrible, and steps have been put in to correct them, they are not going to be corrected by changes to the junior doctors contract. As an organisation, the NHS is aware of its past, but it does also treat 1 million people every 36 hours (at least, that's what I've seen), and the majority of those are treated safely. (www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/about/Pages/overview.aspx ) Due to the nature of health care, and the nature of humans, its never going to be right all the time. Part of trying to change the NHS is trying to get those within it to acknowledge this, and to learn from mistakes, so they don't happen again.

This came up on my fb feed. I haven't checked the maths so don't shoot me if its not correct but if it is then it's food for thought.

Lanchester. I'm not sure how changing the junior doctors contracts will prevent similar incidents to those you've mentioned. Beverley Allett, etc.

I'm actually struggling to understand what any of them have to do with what this thread is about.

You talk about nhs failings, again how is changing the doctors contracts going to change that? And to be honest I don't see Allett or many of the others as an nhs failing. She was a nurse where there were no concerns about her practice or character.

There is no real debate here, just lanchester spouting random views and random attacks.

Junior Drs are trying to raise awareness of genuine concerns about loss of autonomy for their own working conditions and for the future of the NHS.

If you don't trust us or believe us, fine but at least we have tried.

I'm off. Bank Holiday to work tomorrow.

Lack of autonomy? unless your management who has autonomy at work?

As for doctors being paid the same as ikea workers. Quite an insult to even post that.

The problem I am having supporting JD is that they went on strike, until that point they had my full support. Now its very hard to imagine them as anything other than in the same boat as greedy tube drivers blackmailing London. I hear many good points from the doctors here but no one has yet convinced me that if the BMA were offered a pay rise on saturdays then all these other issues would just fade away.

The doctors seem genuine but the strike seems like a political stunt for money.

We lack autonomy in cogeneration as yes managers have autonomy. Even consultants have much less autonomy ..and we have virtually none.

Also lack of autonomy as reflected by the imposition of an unwanted and unaccepted ' contract' .

They don't want a pay rise! They're asking to not have a pay cut and a decrease in their working conditions.

"You can only compare with what you know. I think it is also hard to appreciate when you are outside medicine the lack of autonomy involved in being within the NHS (whatever your role),"

Thanks Shezadoc, I do get this, but I'm nore sure if Drs even realise how massive a difference it is. This misunderstanding is the root of the miscommunications I think.

Urbanfox - who has autonomy? Well, as a lawyer, I do. I didn't have the money or employment protection or pension a Dr has but well I was bullied out after maternity leave I set up my own practice, which I did my way, part time, ethically, from home and only for clients I liked, quickly managing to earn twice as much per hour as when employed and leaving my Fridays free to work with underprivileged chidren, for which I'm now also paid. No JD can do that, threaten to do it or even dream of doing it.

What's more, I've now gone back to a lawfirm. I work pretty much where and when I like so long as I respond to the clients. If I work more, I'm paid more. If I do marketing, I'm paid more, If I choose to work less, I'm paid less. If I train the paralegal, he gets better.

I have a 21st century career with no pension! If I also got £70000 a year, sick pay and a pension it would be pretty much every woman's dream work life. So we in the private sector can think that Drs have it really good.

Whereas a Dr, even a consultant, has a life like mine when i was a trainee solicitor. They are handed a two week schedule which they must fulfill. It overspills and the working conditions are hard. They have no indiviual power over the system, they can only band together. Like students or army cadets or miners or tube drivers...

"This came up on my fb feed. I haven't checked the maths so don't shoot me if its not correct but if it is then it's food for thought."

Delete it from your facebook whothefuckissimon.

As I understand it from mumsnet Drs, You get £22000 in your first 12 months for working a 40 hour week in dermatology or podiatry. ie noone gets that. Or maybe about 5 people.Who will all get an 11% payrise.
First year pay is approx £30000 because they all do evening and weekend work (naturally, otherwise hospitals would be a bit crap)
Mamadoc and other responsible Drs have posted the true figures.
This is the bit I meant about BMA lies. As a lawyer, I would be struck off for lying about money like this. It's why I struggle to suport this particular strike, even though I wish there was a strike I could support.

I'll try to find the better info posted by Drs on this site...

I think NHS staff need a sort of Martin Luther King figure. Or aung san suu kyi. Or Vaclav Havel or... well, you get the picture. Not their self-appointed "Standing Up for Doctors" BMA representatives. Probably a nurse. Otherwise we're stuffed.

If you google nhs pay circulars for medical and dental staff you will get the 2015 (the current pay scales) and the 2016 pay scales, which are the proposed ones under the new contract. I have put the link up before, but I think it's a few pages back.

And thank you for your understanding Miss Triggs.

The FB post was worked out by an individual, and isn't part of the formal arguments. Other doctors were pointing out the inaccuracies in this when it was originally posted some time ago. As a group, we do have people who are sensible in their explanations, and some who are just so incensed that their enthusiasm can get away with them...

They ave losing sympathy and also senior doctors can and do other work too. My brother works as an NHS consultant makes extremely large sums from his none NHS work, very large indeed. The fact pay when you start in law and medicine and lots of other professions is fairly irrelevant - it's a jam tomorrow career. The fact whenever women start being the majority means pay in a profession goes down though and that so many women doctors choose to work part time hours is always a difficult issue and has huge implications. if we could keep all the women working full time whilst their husbands iron their shirts at home we might find women are able to get to those higher paid roles more easily rather than being lumbered with long maternity leaves they cannot persuade their men to take, time off, part time working, flexi hours etc.

Please can we leave the 'lots of private work' argument out of it, this is limited in large part to certain specialties and large urban areas. And is not done in paediatrics, accident and emergency, and is considerably less common in obstetrics outside of London. There are some who do amazingly well out of private practice, but they are becoming fewer and fewer as it costs a lot in terms of time and money to set up private practice, as well as considerable indemnity costs in certain specialties.

It would be interesting to know more about the private work issue. This "greedy consultants" issue definitely affects public perception.

I had a tingling problem that stumped and stressed out my GP this time last year. she told me apologetically that there was a really long wait for neurology.
I cracked and went to see one privately. He was pretty rude about her skills, moaning that she had wasted money sending me for an MRI

It was all I could do not to say "If you were bloody supporting her by working full time for the NHS she could have picked up the phone and asked you couldn't she?"

but you don't, of course, in the heat of the moment, you say "thank you"... then you feel cross later...

Is private work relevant, when talking of JDs?

Only docs I know who do private work are consultants.

And again it depends on speciality how much demand there is. An a&e consultant I guess wouldn't get much work, so yet another reason not to specialise in emergency medicine.

Shezadoc at. 22:14
"There are some who do amazingly well out of private practice, but they are becoming fewer and fewer as it costs a lot in terms of time and money to set up private practice, as well as considerable indemnity costs in certain specialties.
"
So outside the NHS comfort zone,
Payments received into the business LESS all costs paid out
is the total £ available for doctors to take as salary and benefits.
You are in effect saying that you are better off in the NHS because it takes care of costs that you would otherwise have to pay yourself.

Therefore you are suggesting that at the moment the NHS is paying total rewards to doctors greater than it needs to.
If they leave the NHS they would have all the hassle of creating their own business framework, and they would have less money in their personal bank account.