Good article in the New Statesman

Andy

LMA the whole BMA shuts final pension scheme for its employees, yet scream and go on strike about thier own pensions..
.

For me, they have lost any sympathy about change of conditions in service the more I find out about the plans and the history of pay awards etc. The cutting of thier pension scheme for BMA staff is the big, fat, hypocritical cherry on the plate.

As a partner in a firm of architects with 40 employees I can confirm that I don’t get near half of an average doctors salary and I have to deal with probably the most incompetent regulator in the history of mismanagement. I also have significant liability and almost zero respect.
It’s a ball – and I work 10 – 12 hour days. I don’t have a gold plated pension, I don’t have a union or a cartel like doctors do. In fact I work for a profession that was the first to be deliberately broken by the thatcher government.

wtf will you spend 48k a year on when your 68? house car kids all paid for nothing but knitting and slippers and the daily mail to cough up for

Christ. Whilst I genuinely find it hard to believe that the general populace do not understand what’s happening to the NHS, I’ve always taken the forumites here to be a reasonable segment of the population, So I despair.

IT’S NOT ABOUT DOCTORS’ WAGES! It’s about a government, any government, dismantling the NHS. It’s been happening for the last 14 years. It is not getting any better.

The doctor’s strike is the very last bastion of a VERY GOOD system being SHUT DOWN. The doctors are at the higher end of the wage, and for good reason. The entire support system relies on GPs – there are good ones and bad ones. Some will refer to the specialists within the trust, some will not, but the point is that WHEN YOU ARE BROKEN, THEY WILL FIX YOU. And if they can’t, the good ones will refer you to someone who can.

Now, how hard is that to understand?

I don’t have a gold plated pension, I don’t have a union

well what stopped you becoming a dr or getting unionised?

I’ve been out of the country for a week and come back to find this wonderful discussion! Quite a few posters refer to the “average” doctors salary. If you are referring to the much quoted BBC/government figure of 120k you are very much mistaken. Trainees start at around 30k and consultants start at 80k. IIRC top consultant salary is 100-110k. Merit awards can be applied, but are very rare. Doctors (and the majority of the NHS) have undergone pay freezes, but it has been accepted as they have they earn a decent pension at the end. As a medic friend says to me: I’ll happily take a private sector style pension when the NHS pays me a private sector style salary (and just in case there is any doubt, that would be very expensive for the country.

And if you think the NHS is suffering in England, Scotland and N.I., come to Wales. The WAG want to cut health spending by 20% over the next 4 years!

Oh and a small point: medics also leave uni with a surgical degree so we’re equally as qualified as those fabulous vets 😉

Hi fandango – so if you are correct, exactly which medics are trousering the additional money required to drag the average of £110K up from the £30K / £80K / £100K you reference?

By your own figures there must still be quite a few medics making a lot more than the rest to get to the average of £110K (which although reported by the BBC is based on actual income data)….

Farmer John – as with a lot of things, doctors’ pay isn’t normally distributed so the average is a pretty meaningless number – median would be more useful and far lower. The numbers Fandago quotes are about right for hospital doctors; if I wasn’t writing this on my phone I’d find the pay scales (which are in the public domain and available on the NHS Employers website). Some consultants (by no means all, and in fact by no means a majority) do some private practice in their spare time to supplement their income but this has no effect on their NHS pension and is a side issue.

Coming up with an accurate figure for GPs’ pay is far more difficult, as GP practices are effectively private subcontractors to the NHS (after GPs resigned en masse from the NHS in the Sixties, IIRC) – some GPs are salaried and these are paid much less than £100k; the remainder are partners so aren’t paid but recieve a share in the practice ‘profits’. This is extremely variable depending on size of practice, no. of partners vs no. of salaried employees (incl GPs, practice nurses, reception & manager etc), how much QoF (performance-related pay) is coming in and so on. There are some extreme outliers – IIRC one of these was a GP in the Western Isles somewhere who was getting extra money due to the remote nature of their work, and being singlehanded and so on call continuously.

Andy

Pay for doctors

This page outlines the pay for doctors from 1 April 2012.

Doctors in training

Doctors in training earn a basic salary and will be paid a supplement if they work more than 40 hours and/or work outside the hours of 7am-7pm Monday to Friday.

In the most junior hospital trainee post (Foundation Year 1) the basic starting salary is £22,412. This increases in Foundation Year 2 to £27,798. For a doctor in specialist training the basic starting salary is £29,705. If the doctor is contracted to work more than 40 hours and/or to work outside 7am-7pm Monday to Friday, they will receive an additional supplement which will normally be between 20% and 50% of basic salary. This supplement is based on the extra hours worked above a 40 hour standard working week and the intensity of the work.

Specialty doctor and associate specialist (2008) (SAS doctors)

Doctors in the new specialty doctor grade earn between £36,807 and £70,126.

Consultants

Consultants can earn a basic salary of between £74,504 and £100,446 per year, dependent on length of service. Local and national clinical excellence awards may be awarded subject to meeting the necessary criteria.

General practitioners

Many general practitioners (GPs) are self employed and hold contracts, either on their own or as part of a partnership, with their local primary care trust (PCT). The profit of GPs varies according to the services they provide for their patients and the way they choose to provide these services.

Salaried GPs employed directly by PCTs earn between £53,781 to £81,158, dependent on, among other factors, length of service and experience.

From: http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/details/Default.aspx?Id=553