Do you back the junior doctors' strike?
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Original post by TimmonaPortella
I'm pretty sure that's the case in most professions.
Talk to anyone at the junior end in the City and see if they get paid extra for staying past 7.
Talk to anyone at the junior end in the City and see if they get paid extra for staying past 7.
How much is a junior paid ?
Original post by TimmonaPortella
Among many other things, yes. Money is a factor in this whole debate, but there are many other worrying things about this new contract and the way that the government has gone about it.
That said, I don't think I could afford to do this job with a 30% pay cut, especially given the blood, sweat and tears the career demands at the best of times. The cost of practicing medicine is not only financially large, but socially and emotionally.
Keep in mind, as a junior doctor, you will be expected to move house (often different corners of the country) potentially every 4-8 months while working a horrendous rota, while also expected to dedicate your private time to studying for exams (very expensive and multifactoral), writing research papers, doing audits, building a portfolio, attending courses (again, very expensive) etc. All while trying to live a normal life, having a family, seeing friends etc (We are human too, you know).
Another problem I have is doctors claiming that patients won't be put at risk by this strike, whilst at the same time claiming they are acting at 'last resort', presumably under the impression that they will have an impact. If patients won't be put at risk, how could they possibly have an impact? 'Urgent' care, we are told, will be available, but if 'routine' procedures are put off, this could create more risk of serious consequences for patients, could they not? And potentially death? Won't this cause, for example, cancer scans to be put off? Because everyone, medically trained or not, knows that the time of detection there is a tremendous factor in determining outlook. If you put a lot of them off, does it not get increasingly likely that someone will die as a direct result?
Junior doctors rota'd on emergency work will be in work today. Thats all the juniors in A&E, AMU and SAU. That includes junior doctors performing emergency operations and seeing acutely unwell patients on the wards.
In addition to that, consultants will be diverting their attention to non-elective tasks. Yes, that means that someones non-emergency hip replacement will be postponed, but emergency care will be preserved in order to preserve life. This is, ultimately, in the greater interest of the NHS and future care of patients. This is a tactical cost/benefit decision.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by DorianGrayism
How much is a junior paid ?
That's not the point. The argument was apparently that it is unusual and offensive for pay to remain at the same level regardless of overall hours (or, I gather, times) worked. If you want to make an argument for more money overall, make that argument, and try to stay coherently on point.
Original post by TimmonaPortella
I'm pretty sure that's the case in most professions.
60 hour weeks are not the norm.
Talk to anyone at the junior end in the City and see if they get paid extra for staying past 7.
I prefer to ask them at the end of the year, when they collect their bonuses.
Original post by Etomidate
Among many other things, yes. Money is a factor in this whole debate, but there are many other worrying things about this new contract and the way that the government has gone about it.
That said, I don't think I could afford to do this job with a 30% pay cut, especially given the blood, sweat and tears the career demands at the best of times. The cost of practicing medicine is not only financially large, but socially and emotionally.
Keep in mind, as a junior doctor, you will be expected to move house (often different corners of the country) potentially every 4-8 months while working a horrendous rota, while also expected to dedicate your private time to studying for exams (very expensive and multifactoral), writing research papers, doing audits, building a portfolio, attending courses (again, very expensive) etc. All while trying to live a normal life, having a family, seeing friends etc (We are human too, you know).
Junior doctors rota'd on emergency work will be in work today. Thats all the juniors in A&E, AMU and SAU. That includes junior doctors performing emergency operations and seeing acutely unwell patients on the wards.
In addition to that, consultants will be diverting their attention to non-elective tasks. Yes, that means that someones non-emergency hip replacement will be postponed, but emergency care will be preserved in order to preserve life. This is, ultimately, in the greater interest of the NHS and future care of patients. This is a tactical cost/benefit decision.
That said, I don't think I could afford to do this job with a 30% pay cut, especially given the blood, sweat and tears the career demands at the best of times. The cost of practicing medicine is not only financially large, but socially and emotionally.
Keep in mind, as a junior doctor, you will be expected to move house (often different corners of the country) potentially every 4-8 months while working a horrendous rota, while also expected to dedicate your private time to studying for exams (very expensive and multifactoral), writing research papers, doing audits, building a portfolio, attending courses (again, very expensive) etc. All while trying to live a normal life, having a family, seeing friends etc (We are human too, you know).
Junior doctors rota'd on emergency work will be in work today. Thats all the juniors in A&E, AMU and SAU. That includes junior doctors performing emergency operations and seeing acutely unwell patients on the wards.
In addition to that, consultants will be diverting their attention to non-elective tasks. Yes, that means that someones non-emergency hip replacement will be postponed, but emergency care will be preserved in order to preserve life. This is, ultimately, in the greater interest of the NHS and future care of patients. This is a tactical cost/benefit decision.
i thought you got flexible hours as a junior if you were a researcher? My cousin does it at Liverpool..
Original post by stevennotyou
As far as I am concerned, they knew exactly what they signed up for when they wanted to be doctors. When they are working less hours, they should get less pay. They will then strike over that. Where does it end?
They didn't sign up for this. This was forced on them. Its also stopping young students from choosing medicine as a course...
Original post by TimmonaPortella
My understanding was that they were capping the hours, without necessarily increasing them, but I'm happy to be corrected on that.
My understanding was that they were capping the hours, without necessarily increasing them, but I'm happy to be corrected on that.
Junior doctors already work past contracted hours, this contract removes protections discouraging staff from forcibly working extra hours. Under this, doctors will officially work the same amount of hours as they have done, but end up working even more, since the monitoring is reduced, safeguards gone and still no mechanism to ensure breaks are taken or docs go home anywhere near when they should.
Original post by MrMiscer
i thought you got flexible hours as a junior if you were a researcher? My cousin does it at Liverpool..
Non-researchers still have to do audits.
Original post by Etomidate
Among many other things, yes. Money is a factor in this whole debate, but there are many other worrying things about this new contract and the way that the government has gone about it.
That said, I don't think I could afford to do this job with a 30% pay cut, especially given the blood, sweat and tears the career demands at the best of times. The cost of practicing medicine is not only financially large, but socially and emotionally.
Keep in mind, as a junior doctor, you will be expected to move house (often different corners of the country) potentially every 4-8 months while working a horrendous rota, while also expected to dedicate your private time to studying for exams (very expensive and multifactoral), writing research papers, doing audits, building a portfolio, attending courses (again, very expensive) etc. All while trying to live a normal life, having a family, seeing friends etc (We are human too, you know).
Junior doctors rota'd on emergency work will be in work today. Thats all the juniors in A&E, AMU and SAU. That includes junior doctors performing emergency operations and seeing acutely unwell patients on the wards.
In addition to that, consultants will be diverting their attention to non-elective tasks. Yes, that means that someones non-emergency hip replacement will be postponed, but emergency care will be preserved in order to preserve life. This is, ultimately, in the greater interest of the NHS and future care of patients. This is a tactical cost/benefit decision.
That said, I don't think I could afford to do this job with a 30% pay cut, especially given the blood, sweat and tears the career demands at the best of times. The cost of practicing medicine is not only financially large, but socially and emotionally.
Keep in mind, as a junior doctor, you will be expected to move house (often different corners of the country) potentially every 4-8 months while working a horrendous rota, while also expected to dedicate your private time to studying for exams (very expensive and multifactoral), writing research papers, doing audits, building a portfolio, attending courses (again, very expensive) etc. All while trying to live a normal life, having a family, seeing friends etc (We are human too, you know).
Junior doctors rota'd on emergency work will be in work today. Thats all the juniors in A&E, AMU and SAU. That includes junior doctors performing emergency operations and seeing acutely unwell patients on the wards.
In addition to that, consultants will be diverting their attention to non-elective tasks. Yes, that means that someones non-emergency hip replacement will be postponed, but emergency care will be preserved in order to preserve life. This is, ultimately, in the greater interest of the NHS and future care of patients. This is a tactical cost/benefit decision.
As I said, I don't necessarily disagree with the pay related complaint. I would just like to see more doctors be honest that that is part of it (as most seem to be when speaking on a personal level). I think that would help their own cause, too, in the long run. The longer this runs, the more people will find out about it; when people start to figure out that pay is part of it, as a majority of people (according to polling on the BBC yesterday) already think, those many junior doctors who have been on TV and categorically denied that pay is anything to do with it will not help the profession's PR.
Please clarify for me, because I'm not completely clear on your profession's terminology: does a 'non-elective' task include something such as a cancer exam, which will affect the patient's long-term prospects, even if not 'urgent' right now?
Original post by That Bearded Man
Junior doctors already work past contracted hours, this contract removes protections discouraging staff from forcibly working extra hours. Under this, doctors will officially work the same amount of hours as they have done, but end up working even more, since the monitoring is reduced, safeguards gone and still no mechanism to ensure breaks are taken or docs go home anywhere near when they should.
Could you provide an example of a safeguard that would be removed under the new contract?
People seem to be forgetting the Doctors are striking for patient safety. The reason the european working directive was introduced was to cap doctors working hours because the hours they were working was impacting on patient safety. The Government are looking to take away finacial disciplines on trusts who abused this cap (48 hours per week averaged over 6 months) thus allowing them to openly abuse the system. Having spent time working in healthcare, family working in healthcare in various roles including doctors i can tell you that although they are contract 37.5/48 hour weeks. They regularly work overtime for no pay, trusts wont pay or time owing ect. My sister keeps a diary on working hours, taking into account her unpayed hours she makes little over minimum wage as a 2nd year GP training specialty registra. She has accumulated 5 years of university debt. Regulary has to pay out of her own bank account for very expensive exams because doctors are expected to carry out training once qualified.
The akt costs £489 per attempt and the CSA £1489. As you can imagine these are not easy exams, the pass rate is not high, even for academically gifted doctors thus multiple attempts are required. These are just 2 of the required exams for the GP training alone. Because of this GP training registras are given an enchancement into there pay packet otherwise they would be making little over 23k a year. The new contract is looking to remove this enhancement. How can you expect some of the most academically gifted individuals in the country in a "prestigous" job with a ridiculous amount of responsiblilty and terrible working hours to be working for a graduate entry wage.
Furthermore, the new Government contracts does not allow changing specialty finacially viable, for example a junior doctor can have over 12 years experience before becoming a consultant, naturally with experience comes banding and wage increments. If they were to change specialty they would forfeit all gained wage increments as if they had no experience at all. How can this be fair, it negatively effects recruitments into understaffed specialties.
The Government trains 6000 doctors a year and has to recruit 11000 doctors from abroad to fill the outgoing doctors due to retirement/migration/change of job. Even then the incoming number of doctors is not enough for a '5 day service'. Working on the wards now i can tell you that the doctors are regularly understaffed and are not able to meet all the jobs that are required. This leads to delayed discharges, which of course costs the NHS more money. The NHS is not ready for a full 7 day service.
It saddens me that doctors do choose to move abroad for better working conditions, but it is completely understandable.
Speaking to a Doctor about a week ago she told me the reason they are striking is for the future of the NHS, if the Doctors simply cared about money they would push for a USA based system in which Doctor's can be paid 600k dollars a year. However, the poorer individuals of the society who cannot afford insurance do not receive proper treatment which isnt moral/ethical.
The akt costs £489 per attempt and the CSA £1489. As you can imagine these are not easy exams, the pass rate is not high, even for academically gifted doctors thus multiple attempts are required. These are just 2 of the required exams for the GP training alone. Because of this GP training registras are given an enchancement into there pay packet otherwise they would be making little over 23k a year. The new contract is looking to remove this enhancement. How can you expect some of the most academically gifted individuals in the country in a "prestigous" job with a ridiculous amount of responsiblilty and terrible working hours to be working for a graduate entry wage.
Furthermore, the new Government contracts does not allow changing specialty finacially viable, for example a junior doctor can have over 12 years experience before becoming a consultant, naturally with experience comes banding and wage increments. If they were to change specialty they would forfeit all gained wage increments as if they had no experience at all. How can this be fair, it negatively effects recruitments into understaffed specialties.
The Government trains 6000 doctors a year and has to recruit 11000 doctors from abroad to fill the outgoing doctors due to retirement/migration/change of job. Even then the incoming number of doctors is not enough for a '5 day service'. Working on the wards now i can tell you that the doctors are regularly understaffed and are not able to meet all the jobs that are required. This leads to delayed discharges, which of course costs the NHS more money. The NHS is not ready for a full 7 day service.
It saddens me that doctors do choose to move abroad for better working conditions, but it is completely understandable.
Speaking to a Doctor about a week ago she told me the reason they are striking is for the future of the NHS, if the Doctors simply cared about money they would push for a USA based system in which Doctor's can be paid 600k dollars a year. However, the poorer individuals of the society who cannot afford insurance do not receive proper treatment which isnt moral/ethical.
Original post by TimmonaPortella
Another problem I have is doctors claiming that patients won't be put at risk by this strike, whilst at the same time claiming they are acting at 'last resort', presumably under the impression that they will have an impact. If patients won't be put at risk, how could they possibly have an impact? 'Urgent' care, we are told, will be available, but if 'routine' procedures are put off, this could create more risk of serious consequences for patients, could they not? And potentially death? Won't this cause, for example, cancer scans to be put off? Because everyone, medically trained or not, knows that the time of detection there is a tremendous factor in determining outlook. If you put a lot of them off, does it not get increasingly likely that someone will die as a direct result?
s
Another problem I have is doctors claiming that patients won't be put at risk by this strike, whilst at the same time claiming they are acting at 'last resort', presumably under the impression that they will have an impact. If patients won't be put at risk, how could they possibly have an impact? 'Urgent' care, we are told, will be available, but if 'routine' procedures are put off, this could create more risk of serious consequences for patients, could they not? And potentially death? Won't this cause, for example, cancer scans to be put off? Because everyone, medically trained or not, knows that the time of detection there is a tremendous factor in determining outlook. If you put a lot of them off, does it not get increasingly likely that someone will die as a direct result?
s
They will have an impact because clinics will be cancelled and consultants will have do all of the work since they are forced to come in.
Someone could die if they don't have an operation. So, for example, if they have an aortic aneurysm that has to be repaired. Potentially, it could rupture.
However, the chance of that is quite low, otherwise they wouldn't be waiting for it.
Having said that, they will be reorganising services to avoid delays and disruption.
Well, one day isn't really going to make a difference in detecting cancer. Also, Junior Docs don't really have anything to do with whether a scan is done or not.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Danny McCoyne
No they shouldn't ****ing strike. They should grin and bear it. It lasts for two years. And it goes by in a blink of an eye...If you say you love your job and you love 'helping' people. Then you shouldn't mind working for a few hours extra even if you're not compensated for it.
Wtf kind of an answer is this?
If I had a job I'd been doing for some time, and then tomorrow my boss comes along and says "hey, you have to do this same job (or a little extra), for less pay! Sucks for you brah". Then how spineless would I have to be not to tell him to piss off?
Original post by MrMiscer
i thought you got flexible hours as a junior if you were a researcher? My cousin does it at Liverpool..
Even in a non-research job, you are routinely expected to perform research and all the other things I mentioned in order to progress within your career.
Under the new contract, people in dedicated research positions will be financially penalized as they are removing their annual pay increments despite their essential contribution and development of skills.
Define 'cancer exam'.
A patient coming into SAU with acute abdominal pain with a suspected perforated bowel secondary to cancer will get a CT scan that day.
A patient coming in for an outpatient staging CT scan probably wouldn't have their appointment cancelled as it would be performed by radiographers and interpreted by a consultant.
A patient who had an outpatient appointment to see their oncologist to discuss whether their cancer has re-occurred following said scan may have had their appointment post-poned to some extent. Whether that one day contributes to their overall outcome is unlikely.
One thing fueling the public fear about these strikes is a lack of understanding and differentiation between what is actually urgent vs what is just inconvenient. These things will be highly specific and require a reasonable amount of medical competence to judge.
Original post by TheGuyReturns
Wtf kind of an answer is this?
If I had a job I'd been doing for some time, and then tomorrow my boss comes along and says "hey, you have to do this same job (or a little extra), for less pay! Sucks for you brah". Then how spineless would I have to be not to tell him to piss off?
If I had a job I'd been doing for some time, and then tomorrow my boss comes along and says "hey, you have to do this same job (or a little extra), for less pay! Sucks for you brah". Then how spineless would I have to be not to tell him to piss off?
Original post by DorianGrayism
They will have an impact because clinics will be cancelled and consultants will have do all of the work since they are forced to come in.
Someone could die if they don't have an operation. So, for example, if they have an aortic aneurysm that has to be repaired. Potentially, it could rupture. Having said that, they will be reorganising services to avoid delays and disruption.
Well, one day isn't really going to make a difference in detecting cancer. Also, Junior Docs don't really have anything to do with whether a scan is done or not.
Someone could die if they don't have an operation. So, for example, if they have an aortic aneurysm that has to be repaired. Potentially, it could rupture. Having said that, they will be reorganising services to avoid delays and disruption.
Well, one day isn't really going to make a difference in detecting cancer. Also, Junior Docs don't really have anything to do with whether a scan is done or not.
Hm. Thank you for the info.
Original post by Etomidate
One thing fueling the public fear about these strikes is a lack of understanding and differentiation between what is actually urgent vs what is just inconvenient. These things will be highly specific and require a reasonable amount of medical competence to judge.
One thing fueling the public fear about these strikes is a lack of understanding and differentiation between what is actually urgent vs what is just inconvenient. These things will be highly specific and require a reasonable amount of medical competence to judge.
Well, quite, and that is what I am trying to gather information on. I must say, though, I read and watch the news quite closely, and I had very little to go on in that regard. The public debate on this matter has been conducted almost entirely in completely general assertions and counter-assertions. It has been rather frustrating, which is why I'm seeking info in this thread. I don't know how the average member of the public could be expected to have any understanding as to the sort of procedures which will be delayed. If people have no understanding, I don't know how they can be expected to have full confidence.
Thank you for the rest of your response.
Original post by TimmonaPortella
That's not the point. The argument was apparently that it is unusual and offensive for pay to remain at the same level regardless of overall hours (or, I gather, times) worked. If you want to make an argument for more money overall, make that argument, and try to stay coherently on point.
No one is asking for more money. The fact is that the significant overtime is reflected in the high Base pay and bonuses otherwise people wouldn't bother.
Well, pay cannot remain the same regardless of the times worked. It makes no sense for a doctor working mainly 9 to 5 to get paid the same as one working a lot of nights and weekends if they work the same number of overall hours
My thoughts about this: "Shut up Junior!! You are not even a Dr yet."
Spoiler
Original post by DorianGrayism
No one is asking for more money. The fact is that the significant overtime is reflected in the high Base pay and bonuses otherwise people wouldn't bother.
Well, pay cannot remain the same regardless of the times worked. It makes no sense for a doctor working mainly 9 to 5 to get paid the same as one working a lot of nights and weekends if they work the same number of overall hours
Well, pay cannot remain the same regardless of the times worked. It makes no sense for a doctor working mainly 9 to 5 to get paid the same as one working a lot of nights and weekends if they work the same number of overall hours
So, higher base pay is a valid solution?
I agree with you that those working a lot of nights and weekends should be paid more, but if there is a reasonable rota in place I don't see why there should be extra pay. I am sure people do not enter the medical profession expecting to work every night and weekend, but they must surely anticipate that they will do so sometimes. So I don't think it should be about whether or not the hours are 'normal', but about how often the doctor works them.
edit: I should add that I think nights are rather more onerous and disruptive to outside life than weekends.
(edited 8 years ago)
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