How much do you think doctors actually get paid?

[Hayley37888]

I find it ridiculous for their level of skills. No wonder they’re leaving for Australia / New Zealand

To be fair it doesn't really matter what the public think, if those qualified however aren't happy to do the job for the salary then that's an issue because they will walk away, work privately, move abroad- and it will affect us all.

This!! Medicine is a tough career choice and we need to be attracting the brightest and the best to become doctors. Sadly the conditions are so poor that bright students are picking other careers with better conditions and better pay. Where does that leave us as a country?

For all those who are harping on about consultant salaries being enough - DH has a group of friends from uni, all of which studied economics/finance. We are all early 30s and every single one of them is earning a 6 figure salary with far better and flexible working conditions than a doctor has. We are at the age where majority of medics I studied with are now consultants - they earn less than those in private sector. A fair few have emigrated or moved into private sector and are much happier for it. You can't compare bright, highly educated professionals to non-professional roles and then declare the latter are well paid

If we don't support them, we are going to lose a whole generation of doctors

I don’t really have an opinion on whether it’s enough etc
but two of my friends are GOs, both do 4 days a week, and one weekend day a month.
one is a partner and earns around £100k the other not a partner earns around £75k.
they both complain about not having enough patient facing time, and not being able to refer on due to long waits, but they don’t complain about pay.
another friend is a consultant, earns around £90k from NHS, additional from private practice.

And have one of best pensions available. I'm not that sympathetic towards drs when you look at what nurses/teachers/vets are paid.

Exactly.

Plus I think there’s a lot of reverse snobbery tied up in debates about doctors pay. You just have to look at the comments up thread about cleaners pay vs doctors pay.

I agree as above. The US for example value doctors far more than we do. Doctors will go elsewhere and we will end up with what we deserve.

I never met a consultant who worked a 40 hour week and I worked in the NHS for decades. 60 hours minimum would be more like it. Given how bad the JD pay is for years I don't begrudge them a decent salary by the time they are mid 30s. I have been pretty sick for the last 6 years and I have been looked after by some really kind, hard working people of all grades in the NHS. They aren't paid enough IMO and their working conditions at all levels are pretty dire. Really basic things like a functioning IT system, enough clerical and secretarial support. A working printer with ink and paper. There aren't enough beds, theatre slots, support staff. These things would make the job easier.

Also a lot of doctors locum instead of staying on the payscale and earn what the should be paid anyway.

It costs the NHS a fortune to employ locums and agency staff. If the regular staff were paid a competitive salary they wouldn't all leave and locums and agency staff wouldn't be needed.

I worked in USA for a while about 3 years after I qualified as a nurse. My salary was exactly double what I earned in the UK. I had a health insurance package, but no paid sick leave and only 5 days annual leave in the first year, rising to 10 days maximum after that. I left after a year though because I hated the system.

hardly - the pay scales to cost of living is different in the US, but apart from the top level of consultants, most of the doctors over there get squeezed hard with wages due to it being a for profit business.

Also with doctors wages over here it really will massively vary between specialisation and tenure, Junior Doctors can have over 10 years experience as well. I have a friend who is an anaesthesiologist and works 3 days a week - her full time wage would be over 130k.

However its a very in demand specialisation and so she pretty much can dictate the terms she wants.

however she is not reflective of the average.

As another poster mentioned above the actual pay really is irrelevant to a point - it boils down to do people want to do that job for that wage, if yes then its fine, if no then its to low (alongside other things)

Nurse friends often do extra shifts or book holiday and then work as locum staff to top up income. A fair few of the locums are not different people just the same staff being paid at different rates for the same job - essentially its become and over time bank

In the US doctors have hundreds of thousands of pounds of student debt to pay off - not equivalent to UK tuition fees. It’s also a completely different healthcare system.

You can’t pick US doctors income but NHS public healthcare funding.

My friend makes around £74k for a 3 day week (27 hours) as a gp partner once expenses etc are taken off. I don't think it's bad myself. Gross salaries of gp partners can be misleading I admit but my friend definitely knows how to play the system, he retires in 4 years.

According to my GP surgery website, the average pay for GPs in the last financial year was £81,454 for 8 part time GPs and 1 locum. None of our GPs work full time.

@prescribingmum

But finance and economics isn't typical of salaries. Many of us earn closer to minimum wage despite degrees, masters degrees and working with the most vulnerable in society. You can't compare very high earners in the private sector to doctors.

Anyway once consultants, doctors can earn similar amounts, dp's eye doctor certainly makes good money operating on 4 patients an hour!

It is clear that doctors are some of the best paid people in the country, and they all know how much they are likely to earn going into practice. So let’s not hold a pity party for them just yet, eh?

These are the richest people in our country, are you seriously whining that the top 10% need more pay?! Richer than almost every in the whole world, top 2% of earners on the planet!

The begging to make the rich richer in this country when our population is literally starving is pretty gross. It’s just delusional entitlement from the middle classes about what real people are going through in society. How out of touch are these people?

Then leave.
Go do something else if you’re not happy.
If you’ve got a degree you’ll land on your feet.
Become a politician, they earn £85K a year.

The local vets shares a car park with a GP surgery.

Vets:

Appointments the same day.
Open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., plus weekends.
24/7 Out of hours access.
Home visits available.
Has a CT scanner and other diagnostic equipment.
Carries our major surgery.

GP surgery:

8:30-5:30 Mon-Fri only. (Reception telephone opens at 08:00).
No out of hours.
Usually telephone consults in the first instance only.
Appointments typically not available after 08:05.
Two week lead time for routine appointments.
CT, surgery. MRI etc referred (another waiting list).

The vets have no access to a generous NHS pension scheme- 3% employer contribution only. A vet there will spend one night on call a week (in addition to their daytime hours), and 1 full weekend working, plus on call in every six. Plus two Saturdays in every six. Average earnings across the practice- £42k.

i don’t blame the vets for leaving their profession. I bet a lot of them they wished they had became GPs or dentists instead.

As a doctor I agree vets are underpaid but it's not a race to the bottom. I think they're amazing to do the job they do and deserve so much more. I have the utmost respect for every vet I've ever met.

There's so much misinformation on this thread. For most hospital specialties you're a junior doctor for a minimum of 9 years before you're a consultant. That is a significant portion of your career. The pay is just not enough for the level of responsibility we take on. Consultants do work nights and weekends but at night it is us on site holding down the fort. And we get paid peanuts to run cardiac arrests, break bad news, deliver babies, manage major haemorrhages and perform life saving emergency surgery. We rely on doctors who have trained internationally to come here and they're just not being paid enough to do so. The whole system is in such a mess and people quoting random GPs earning this much and that much, it's a different pay scale, for a very different job so you don't understand what you're talking about.

And fyi that post asking if the hourly rates are quoted pre or post tax, that's pre tax. I'm CT2 and certainly don't see £19 an hour.

Dh has been a Consultant for 18 years, so not exactly a youngster 😁
He was always, and still is, the lowest earner out of all his big gang of Uni mates. They all went into finance /business/IT. He’s never moaned about it as such, after all he chose medicine because that’s what he always wanted to do. But it’s interesting when the public think it’s the Doctors who are raking in all the money….

I think it depends on your speciality. TBH, I think the work-life balance is more important. Some specialties are like psychiatry are better for a 9-5 lifestyle.

My 17yo dd currently earns more per hour as an unqualified tutor than she will after years of training as a junior doctor. It is insane!

A short time?

to be an orthopaedic surgeon: 2 years foundation, 2 years core surgery, 5 years specialist training

to be a renal consultant: 2 years foundation, 3 years internal medicine training, 4 year specialist training

to be a radiologist: 2 years foundation, 5 years specialist training

to be a psychiatrist: 2 years foundation, 3 years core training, 3 years specialist training

Medical school takes 5 or 6 years so you graduate at 23/24. Training in ‘junior’ medicine is gruelling, so many people
take time out. People may also do research/PhDs and have maternity/shared parental leave. The reality is most medics are ‘junior doctors’ until at least their 30s so often have mortgages, childcare costs and other financial commitments. Saying the low pay for ‘junior’ medicine is ok because ‘junior’ doctors are young and it doesn’t last long is just not accurate.

an accurate table of the ‘junior’ doctor pay scales is here: www.bma.org.uk/pay-and-contracts/pay/junior-doctors-pay-scales/pay-scales-for-junior-doctors-in-england

I just don’t think hourly rates are the best way of looking at NHS compensation, you need to look at the whole package. A lot of benefit is tied into the pension. NHS drs on this thread, would you rather have the money now and a more standard private sector pension arrangement? So typically employer contribution of 4% salary than 20%?
I’m not being goady at all - I think the pension is well deserved with pay as it stands, but given the cost of living maybe it would be better to have pay 15% higher for your career but a less generous pension?

I also think the government should write off 3k student loan for each year of service, subsidised or free parking, and pay exam fees etc. I think that would go quite a long way to showing how much we value people, as well as enhancing pay, but I don’t think it’s that far off - if I think what should a fresh out of uni FY1 get, 30k springs to mind, which is what their basic pay is.