doctors on strike

Another.

Now that Telegraph article has explained that doctors can be replaced with an App I’m not so bothered any more 🙄

Salaries for more experienced pilots could range from £36,000 to £48,000 in a first officer role. The starting salary for a captain with a medium-sized airline may range from £57,000 to £78,000, while those with the major operators could earn from £97,000 to more than £140,000.

Seems pretty good to me the strict conditions they have means they can’t work too many hours. Of course the roster is 24/7 planes fly 24/7.

They are not striking about working 7 days that already happens. I’m surprised no one has mentioned that yet.

[edit] Drac got the same quote and link first

I could live with that.

I could live with that.

Me too. No idea how accurate is though.

I think stoners graph nicely illustrates how the dispute isn’t about pay

And dragon docs with PhDs make for better docs ime,
Replacing scientists with clinicians is just stupid…

Me too. No idea how accurate is though.

Probably as accurate as some of the figures about doctor pay that get bandied about.

Does it reflect some of the substantial additional costs novice pilots have to pay out of their salaries for in-job training?

Many people are still missing the point…

1) The “evidence” that people suffer because of the current way medical staffing is arranged simply isn’t there. The authors of the paper Hunt misquoted have tried, in vain, to put him right.
2) Most of the barriers to 24/7 care come from other services in hospitals, not absence of Drs.
3) The whole contract change is “cost-neutral” and is reducing the pay of junior Drs who work more at the weekends, whilst increasing the pay of others.
4) We face a workforce crisis, for various reasons, and huge recruitment difficulties in various specialities, including General Practice. The behaviour of Hunt and the DoH is alienating and driving away a naturally conservative work force.
5) The changes at the other end of the career pathway to the way pension contributions are taxed, and to the way acute hospitals are organised are driving Consultants and GPs alike into retirement as soon as they can, when expertise and workforce could be retained longer.
6) GPs are earning less than they were before the “new contract” and working much harder, Most consultants have seen most of their private practice disappear (which I think is good) and they are exhausted by having been screwed over as JDs 30 years ago, then doing Consultant-led on call aged over 60.

You don’t have to think Drs are badly treated or badly paid or to sympathise with them to see there is a real practical workforce issue here. The NHS is getting worse in so many ways since 2009-2010, and is at real risk here. Doctors will vote with their feet, or retire if they can.

Considering how unattractive some people think being a Doctor is Universities have always been and remain heavily oversubscribed. When you look at career earnings, pensions and job security its a very attractive career.

Does it reflect some of the substantial additional costs novice pilots have to pay out of their salaries for in-job training?

Just like some of the figures that get banded about for Dr’s and the training they pay for I would say no.

Considering how unattractive some people think being a Doctor is Universities have always been and remain heavily oversubscribed. When you look at career earnings, pensions and job security its a very attractive career.

Not as attractive as the options abroad which is where many University applicants then go to.

X-factor is always “oversubscribed” as you put it and look at some of the shite that want to be a “star”

Just cause you want to be doesn’t mean you can be.

Oh dear just5minutes is back 🙄

Please tell me how you got to earnings of £4-5m, I am really looking forward to my wife being a multi millionaire.

..and get your facts right about pension pots. The government has already capped them at £750k.

just5minutes – why does it bother you so much that some of the most highly educated/intelligent/trained people in the country are paid a reasonable wage?

Edit –

1) The “evidence” that people suffer because of the current way medical staffing is arranged simply isn’t there. The authors of the paper Hunt misquoted have tried, in vain, to put him right.

and he is still trying to pedal it this morning, of course to try and make it more effective he is now talking about children suffering.

Not as attractive as the options abroad which is where many University applicants then go to.

Thats an efficient job market, there are still more than enough recruits Good friend of mine comes from a family of South African dentists, a few years ago every single one of the graduates from the Dentistry School came to the UK. It works both ways.

I can see how frustrated JD are, when the Labour government put more money in and gave them a weekend/evening opt out many declined. JDs are being asked to work Saturdays so they see their working patterns going the other way.

As I posted on the other thread the Tories won the election with a higher nhs spending pledge than Labour (+£8bn pa vs £2bn). What is desperately needed now is an impartial and rational review of health service provision, what we have is unique but its not working and is not workd class when looking at the overall service. When you are pretty much the only country doing something a certain way it is not necessarily a good thing and deserves scruitiny. The NHS cannot sustain itself, there isn’t enough money for what it is being asked to do now and in the future.

Minor point – “JDs are being asked to work Saturdays so they see their working patterns goingbthe other way”
You do know, as I suspect may have been mentioned somewhere on the internet, this already happens, and Sundays too! And bank holidays, and nights – who do you think does the majority of the medical cover in hospitals?

As has been mentioned elsewhere, Facebook I think I saw it – today and tomorrow see little more effect to the actual care provision than multiple times per year when medics rotate posts and senior cover is the mainstay of provision, or who complained about all the ops/ appointments cancelled for the extra bank holiday for the royal wedding? Must have missed that media storm.

Thats an efficient job market, there are still more than enough recruits Good friend of mine comes from a family of South African dentists, a few years ago every single one of the graduates from the Dentistry School came to the UK. It works both ways.

Dentists!

I can see how frustrated JD are, when the Labour government put more money in and gave them a weekend/evening opt out many declined. JDs are being asked to work Saturdays so they see their working patterns going the other way.

Try again. Jnr Dr’s work weekends already.

Considering how unattractive some people think being a Doctor is Universities have always been and remain heavily oversubscribed. When you look at career earnings, pensions and job security its a very attractive career.

It might attract you… but people are leaving it, there is a real workforce recruitment and retention crisis, which increasing the number of medical students hugely over the years has not addressed.

And the current students have 5-6 years of student debt over them.

I was speaking to an eye surgeon acquaintance last week. Their service is falling apart. They cannot get adequate juniors and have vacant posts. They are getting no applications for a decent consultant job. Their waiting lists are going up, appointments are being cancelled. This is (beacuse of private practice) potentially a very high-earning speciality with limited on-call call outs. If they are screwed, we all are.

From entering medical school it would take 10 years to get to the Junior Stage and 16 to the Consultant stage.

You will get the NHS you pay and vote for. Well done there!

jambalaya – Member

Considering how unattractive some people think being a Doctor is Universities have always been and remain heavily oversubscribed. When you look at career earnings, pensions and job security its a very attractive career.

This crudely assumes that people are motivated to become a doctor for money. From the large portion of my friends that work in healthcare, teaching and other public sector and care related jobs, I can safely say this is not the case.

Is there room on this thread for a joke about a haemophiliac crossing a picket line, being struck by a brick thrown by striking doctors and bleeding to death while everyone shouts “Scab! Scab! Scab!” ?

If there is I’ll try and think of one.

or who complained about all the ops/ appointments cancelled for the extra bank holiday for the royal wedding?

Mr Chunt did this himself earlier on in the dispute. BMA were asking him to come back to ACAS. He agreed at 5pm the day before the strike, at which point it was too late to reinstate elective services that had been cancelled for the following day.

Fwiw I agree with the last two posts from stoatsbrother.

My last post is mainly Roy Lilley’s words, hence quotation marks, incorrect apostrophes and ref to SHAs not F2s.

Google “BMA cost of training” to get their fact sheet: over £500k to train a doc in 2013, mainly paid by the NHS.

“Highest average paid” key word is average meaning mean. Again you can do your own googling.

ut people are leaving it, there is a real workforce recruitment and retention crisis, which increasing the number of medical students hugely over the years has not addressed.

You sure about that?

Registered doctors each year from 2006 – 2015

Doctors added to the LRMP each year from 2006 – 2015

Yeah, but “cost of training” in that context actually means the cost of paying the doctor their salary. And I don’t think that anyone can argue that doctors aren’t working in that time.

In addition, that £500k on the BMA site that you quote also includes tuition and accommodation costs that are borne by the doctor, not the taxpayer.

Finally, a point on recruitment and retention of junior doctors. I spoke to a more junior doctor on one of my wards the other day, who informed me that only 46% of medical SHO posts in our Deanery had been filled this year. That’s more than half of medical jobs that will be empty in August. That’s a disaster.

Oh, and we didn’t appoint any registrars in my specialty in 2014 and 2015 in my region because there weren’t any appointable candidates…

dragon Yep. That is registered Drs and includes those not working, retired but still on the register, the increasing number who have chosen to work part-time so provide less overall time…

And BTW the government’s own equality assessment team says the new contact for JDs discriminates against women!

Now if you want to use your mad point-of-view-justifying skillz to look for vacancies and recruitment issues… feel free.

A friend in an excellent local practice told me last year when they were trying to recruit a new GP (and still are) that they had got to the stage where they would accept anyone who owned a stethoscope…

Fill rates for specialty training decline dramatically in 2016

Core medical training decreased from 87% job fill rate in 2015 to 78% in 2016
Paediatrics 96% to 84%
Obs and gynae 100% to 91%
A+E 99% to 96%
Psychiatry regularly fills less than two thirds of its posts

legolam thanks…

Good moment for Mr Hunt to pick a fight and demoralise JDs even more, isn’t it?!

Good moment for Mr Hunt to pick a fight and demoralise JDs even more, isn’t it?!

almost as if he’s doing as much damage as he can, so that the good ol’ private sector can step in and save the day.

That £8 bn that the Tories promised is going to be spent on private hospitals built with public money and some very, very expensive elective surgery.

Dramatically is over stating the case overall it has gone from 82% to 79%, but with only one comparison it is fairly meaningless, you’d need a good few more years to see a proper trend.

retired but still on the register

Well 6% are aged over 65, so say they are all retired, I can’t see how that % would have fluctuated wildly over the years, so the general trend of increasing numbers of registered doctors is till valid.

Working part time well, that’s almost certainly primarily due to an increase in women coming into the profession, so you want to ban part time working? It is a interesting point though that no one addresses about the NHS, as part-time working becomes more prevalent, then the tax payer needs to pay for more to be trained, as a country how do we address this?

Salaries for more experienced pilots could range from £36,000 to £48,000 in a first officer role. The starting salary for a captain with a medium-sized airline may range from £57,000 to £78,000, while those with the major operators could earn from £97,000 to more than £140,000.

The FOs will be on substantially less than the 36-48k for their first few years whilst repaying the >£100k cost of training, either to the airline or to their lender.

Yes, the starting salary for a captain is correct, but you’d need to be a pilot for probably 10 years to get the LHS.

For the majors, Virgin require you to be in the company for about 10 years and BA 20 for long haul (I accept that command times are reducing for short haul at BA – not sure what the pay is there, though)!!

Good pay eventually, but you’ll have many hours under the belt to get that money. Factor in a couple of divorces too and the fact that you’ll be totally burnt out well before 65 so early retirement is a must.

As above, numbers registered are not a useful guide.

We are going to 1 of 11 slots filled on one of our rota slots from August. That’s in a major city hospital.

No hope of getting locums either as now the rates are capped they refuse to work in busy units.

The system is creaking more and more. Ironically staffing levels are relatively higher today than many days due to cancellation of elective work.

Miker sounds very similar to doctors then.

Well 6% are aged over 65, so say they are all retired,

Nope. Some are still working even if they are not they can remain on the register.

Good pay eventually, but you’ll have many hours under the belt to get that money. Factor in a couple of divorces too and the fact that you’ll be totally burnt out well before 65 so early retirement is a must.

What about pilots?

Good moment for Mr Hunt to pick a fight and demoralise JDs even more, isn’t it?!

Yes if you idealogically want to privatise the NHS but politically can’t say that’s what you’re doing because even the sapspeople that vote for you won’t vote for that.

Well 6% are aged over 65, so say they are all retired, I can’t see how that % would have fluctuated wildly over the years, so the general trend of increasing numbers of registered doctors is till valid.

Working part time well, that’s almost certainly primarily due to an increase in women coming into the profession, so you want to ban part time working? It is a interesting point though that no one addresses about the NHS, as part-time working becomes more prevalent, then the tax payer needs to pay for more to be trained, as a country how do we address this?
Anecdotally, I used to work for a clinical system supplier (2010-14) and many doctors in that time took temporary retirement and came back part-time. By no means were all of them female, nearer 50:50.

Fact or supposition ?

I don’t want to go back over what I have written before but the main thing I want to say today is that it is the specific jobs that are going to lose out way worse than others that makes the new contract so unfair. Hospital-based jobs are already awful rotas to work. This contract goes out of it’s way to target those same specialties that rely so heavily on out of hours work. These guys should be the ones recompensed the most and given the biggest incentives to be away from their family, life, happiness for essentially their whole career. We were all struggling on until this new contract came along. It now makes it untenable for the manner of work we are asked to do.

10% drop in medical registrar applications means hospitals across the country losing decision-making people through the evenings, nights and weekends. Same goes for surgical registrars, O&G, all specialties that have unpredictable and persistent patient flow. Out hospital are getting into trouble for trying to bully GP trainees into working the medical registrar rota despite them repeatedly saying they do not feel safe doing it and they are not adequately trained. Hospitals are desperate to cover these shifts already. I should say this is in Scotland and not actually affected by the strikes. Think what further discincentive will do to this.

Those arguing against us in this argument cannot understand what it will mean for their own care should they need to go to hospital during these times. You must understand this is personal to each and every one of us, doctor or not. I’m not sure we have got this message across enough..

That seems to be the case. We’ve heard it’s not about money, then it is about money. About weekend working but then we’re told doctors already work weekends.

Is it down to doctors currently getting a substantial salary premium when working “unsocial hours” and the new contract reclassifying the “unsocial hours” definition such that the salary premium will go ?

Is it down to doctors currently getting a substantial salary premium when working “unsocial hours” and the new contract reclassifying the “unsocial hours” definition such that the salary premium will go ?

No.

Oh, and we didn’t appoint any registrars in my specialty in 2014 and 2015 in my region because there weren’t any appointable candidates…

As I said we need an impartial review of Health Service provision, what we have and how it’s funded cannot cope.

This crudely assumes that people are motivated to become a doctor for money. From the large portion of my friends that work in healthcare, teaching and other public sector and care related jobs, I can safely say this is not the case.

I understand that, however it’s worth noting my neighbours include a surgeon and a dentist with with very nice houses, top end Mercedes and nice yachts. Nothing against any of that of course, they deserve it.

Well it certainly seems to be a part of it.

From Auntie http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34775980

How is the contract changing?
Basic pay is to be increased by 13.5% on average.
But that comes at a price: other elements of the pay package are to be curbed, including what constitutes unsociable hours.
Day hours on a Saturday will be paid at a normal rate, while extra premiums that are being offered for night and the rest of the weekend are lower than what is currently paid.
Guaranteed pay increases linked to time in the job are also to be scrapped and replaced with a system linked to progression through set training stages.