Doctor's strike - what do they actually get paid?

[MageQueen]

I see doctors are striking again. They want a 29% increase, after 5.5% the last two years and the approx 20% they got after the last strike.

I'm a bit confused. What do they actually earn?

Broadly, I'm in favour of NHS doctors being paid a good wage but I think they lost me when they say that salaries need to be equivalent to 2008. I mean, I don't disagree, but they're not the only ones whose pay is significantly lower in real terms and with all due respect, unlike most of us, they've at least had SOME improvements? I wouldn't want to be a nurse, a retail worker, a childminder etc at this point becuase as far as I can tell, pay has barely moved in 10 years even as cost of living has spiralled.

But then, I don't know what they earn so for all I know, they're on very low wages considering the responsibility we put on them.

Surely I don’t have to explain profit driven clinical decisions often motivated by big pharma incentives versus clinical need? (Oxycontin anyone?) But if people want private, share driven healthcare and not the NHS let’s keep comparing and cherry picking the slices that we think we’d like - like Drs salaries in the USA.

Wow. I have no words for this.

OK so comparing doctors to cleaners in terms of wages is insulting.

We know cleaners will get a tiny fraction of doctors income in future and that should just simply be self evident. Have cleaners decided to be cleaners because that where the big bucks are. No. Cleaners often take the role as they have relative weak academic qualifications or in our case many are immigrants where English being a second language is a significant barrier.

Doctors have great academic qualifications, great future careers and the top 5% remuneration that comes with it. Comparison with cleaners is simply sloganeering and I think a lot of professionals if they wanted be creative with hours and pay could make an argument for it at some point in their career (but they don't).

But the personal risk potentially much higher. Need to compare apples with apples

That’s when you can actually get to see a GP. In past 6 years the “service” has degraded to anything but.

I had to wait two weeks for a GP appointment this month, and it was only a medication review so they could approve a prescription of a medication I need that was prescribed privately. Even then, it wasn’t even with a GP but a physician associate. It’s a shambles.

When posters say why don’t other low paid workers strike - it’s often because they are so low paid that they can’t afford to strike.

For example the pay for support staff in schools is particularly abysmal. But then how can they afford to take industrial action? I’m also willing to bet a lot of single mums for example work in school support roles due to the hours and term time only, so again less likely to be able to afford to strike, for example.

Very true

Personally, I don’t think doctors should be allowed to strike, but that’s me!

The phlebotomists (the blood takers) in our Trust have been striking for about two months now. They are on band 2 (barely above minimum wage), they are asking for their role to be reavaluated against the band 3 job description. Various other Trusts pay phlebotomists at band 3. They have a strike fund, lots of local people are contributing.

If NHS England wasnt paying out up to 2 times annual salary as a redundancy package the NHS might have more money to spend on doctors.

This is exactly what PA's should be doing.What do you think they should be doing ?

PAs absolutely should not be prescribing

But they were asking me whether I knew if the medication dose needed increasing - how am I supposed to know? I’m the patient…..

https://www.england.nhs.uk/2024/04/millions-more-gp-appointments-in-march-than-before-pandemic/

GP’s are doing more appointments not less. It’s supply and demand - more patients want appointments than there are available.

Given PAs can't prescribe personally I don't think they should be doing medication reviews. If the leng review gets accepted they won't be working with undifferentiated patients anymore at least

I really needed to speak to a GP. Also what’s happened to actually getting an allotted appointment time? I just get told I’ll get a call “sometime in the afternoon,” or “between 3pm and 5pm.” Nightmare for work.

Yup, it's cos the government are fully funding PAs to the practices. I have tons of unemployed GP mates, it's not like they don't want to work.

I struggled on my last practice as could only book with named GP who only worked 2d a week and the receptionist couldn't comprehend that I couldn't just tell the entire theatre team/patients they'd just have to wait a bit for me to start work late as an anaesthetist lol

That’s not good at all, and I totally relate. I am a CBT therapist and I see 5 clients a day… I can’t just leave midway through a therapy appointment with someone. Honestly, I don’t understand the system. And receptionists just treat you as if you don’t have a job, or some kind of job you can easily get out from. I wouldn’t want to book a day off work just to attend an 8 min GP appt or in my case to speak to a PA. I’ve now got to make another appt with my private consultant (costs money) to discuss my medication and dosage.

It’s a shame that your friends are out of work - it’s ludicrous. I don’t understand it, and it needs to be looked at. Is that another reason why they’re striking? All I can understand is that it’s due to pay and working conditions?

A medication review is not the same as perscibing new medication.

Are they literally not the difference between life and death ? I think they should be paid at X4 times as much as they do !
The hours,the training,the continuous education and the responsibility alone should be enough for them not to even have to be striking over pay ... absolutely disgusting they are even being put in this predicament....but that's just my opinion.

Lots of people forget that exam fees are very expensive (up to 1k) and as are the materials for study (£300-£500). Doctors also re-locate frequently which means they can never save as they are constantly renting from place to place. Previously they lived in hospital accommodation but as this was taken away, lots of doctors are now struggling.

Yes doctors wage increases as time passes but some doctors (parents in particular) will be less than full time and may not take exams as quickly to progress to the next stage. It's silly to assume that doctors climb up the pay grade so easily.

But they couldn’t amend my medication.

Its definitely part of the reason everyone is utterly fed up at present. There's going to be 20k unemployed drs come August due to the nhs reforms and cutbacks. There's just hardly anything around, where I want to work as a consultant put in the business case years back and its still not approved. I've taken a temporary contract with a 2h a day commute as a stop-gap but I won't complain, tons of my London anaesthetic consultant colleagues can't get a job at all

Yes I do understand that but I don’t believe PAs have the kknowledge skills and experience to do proper med reviews
this and will still have to get the GP to sign
offf - just employ a GP who is
worth 2 PAs and can do everything