Associate
Ive been trying to stay out of discussions like this but I dont feel like I can at the moment. I am actually an FY1 (most junior of all doctors) at a hospital in the west midlands and I do take exception to a few of the points raised above.
1) Monetary concerns. This so called '13.5% pay rise' is nothing of the sort. At the moment, the starting salary for an FY1 is £22,636 + a banding supplement based on the number of anti-social hours we work. This can vary between 10-80% depending quantity and type of hours worked. The new contract increases basic salary by 13.5% while almost completely eliminating banding by doing away with half the anti-social hours we work - saturday being the main culprit.
Medicine is one of the only jobs I know where you are not actually payed for the hours you work. I am contracted on a normal day to be in the hospital on the wards from 0800-1700. During that time I am not scheduled any breaks but told by staffing to 'take half an hour when I can'. If at any point during this break I am bleeped, I have to answer it. If a patient is sick at 1655 I have to help sort the patient out. If I am scrubbed in in theatre I have to stay there until the operation is done for no compensation money wise or time wise. There is no overtime which we get paid for, we entirely rely on banding to make the job viable for supporting a family.
At no point were we asking for more pay (despite a pay freeze, such that, after inflation and removal of free accommodation, the starting salary for FY1s should be around £35k) we were just asking for the current system of banding to remain unchanged.
Times are hard in austerity and, yes, doctors are well paid relative to the general population. But relative to another graduate who has done 3 years degree and then worked for 3 years we are around £15k a year behind where they are at the same point in our lives.
2) time. Yes, Mr Hunt has graciously said that he is capping the working week at 72hrs. Currently the EWTD has capped this at 48hrs which no-one brings up any way despite the fact that we are technically meant to abide by this. However the rebranding of saturday as plain time means that I am going to be made to work more saturdays and be given off time during the week as 'compensation'. Helpful when none of my friends or family have time off during the week, meaning that I am unable to actually socialise with anyone outside of my firm.
3. Consultant contracts and other allied professionals. This is the major concern, not just for Juniors, but everyone else in the NHS. It was juniors today, tomorrow it will be consultants and the day after it will be everyone else. Nurses currently get paid 130% for working on a saturday - soon it will be plain time just like the rest. Who in their right mind would agree to work on a saturday for no extra money?
4. Medical recruitment. This year, application to specialties was at an all time low. They couldnt even fill all the surgical posts. Dropping this on an already demoralised workforce will shatter recruitment to specialty posts. Mr Hunt himself admitted that the problem at weekends isnt the lack of juniors but that of senior decision makers. All well and good spouting '7-day NHS' every other sentence, but when there will be no consultants in 10 years time that is a policy sure to fail
5. Mortality at weekends. This is probably the biggest problem with everything. The studies which the health secretary keeps trotting out do NOT say this at all. It is the 30-day mortality for patients admitted at weekends. Actual mortality at weekends is LOWER. This is not due to problems at the weekends; it is because patients who present to hospital at the weekend tend to be sicker. Put simply, people do not want to go to the hospital a weekends unless they are severely unwell.
6. Out of program study. Currently, if you take time out of the NHS to do an academic fellowship or a PhD (necessary for both innovation in the NHS as well as being able to actually get a consultants post) you slot back in to your program at the same place but with a slightly higher pay level, firstly to appreciate what you have done and also to encourage people to follow other forms of study. The new contract wants to remove this entirely. This is important to ensure that people who take time out in order to study, say, a cure for cancer or have a baby will be unfairly penalised against.
7. the lies the health secretary tells. Not only does he keep saying that 'mortality is higher on weekends' (despite being called out on in in parliament today) which is simply not true, but he keeps saying that the BMA has failed to negotiate. This again is simply not true; the BMA originally agreed to talks, then again at acas, not the government. He says that pay is increasing, despite the fact that calculations show hes wrong. He says that hours worked will be less, despite this being simply wrong as well as rebranding saturday as normal hours.
These are just some of the reasons why doctors and other workers are so irate. If you want to see more, visit the BMA's website where there is much more information.
Agree with me, or dont. But you will definitely see doctors emigrating for a better life or resigning and working in anything other than Mr Hunt's NHS.
1) Monetary concerns. This so called '13.5% pay rise' is nothing of the sort. At the moment, the starting salary for an FY1 is £22,636 + a banding supplement based on the number of anti-social hours we work. This can vary between 10-80% depending quantity and type of hours worked. The new contract increases basic salary by 13.5% while almost completely eliminating banding by doing away with half the anti-social hours we work - saturday being the main culprit.
Medicine is one of the only jobs I know where you are not actually payed for the hours you work. I am contracted on a normal day to be in the hospital on the wards from 0800-1700. During that time I am not scheduled any breaks but told by staffing to 'take half an hour when I can'. If at any point during this break I am bleeped, I have to answer it. If a patient is sick at 1655 I have to help sort the patient out. If I am scrubbed in in theatre I have to stay there until the operation is done for no compensation money wise or time wise. There is no overtime which we get paid for, we entirely rely on banding to make the job viable for supporting a family.
At no point were we asking for more pay (despite a pay freeze, such that, after inflation and removal of free accommodation, the starting salary for FY1s should be around £35k) we were just asking for the current system of banding to remain unchanged.
Times are hard in austerity and, yes, doctors are well paid relative to the general population. But relative to another graduate who has done 3 years degree and then worked for 3 years we are around £15k a year behind where they are at the same point in our lives.
2) time. Yes, Mr Hunt has graciously said that he is capping the working week at 72hrs. Currently the EWTD has capped this at 48hrs which no-one brings up any way despite the fact that we are technically meant to abide by this. However the rebranding of saturday as plain time means that I am going to be made to work more saturdays and be given off time during the week as 'compensation'. Helpful when none of my friends or family have time off during the week, meaning that I am unable to actually socialise with anyone outside of my firm.
3. Consultant contracts and other allied professionals. This is the major concern, not just for Juniors, but everyone else in the NHS. It was juniors today, tomorrow it will be consultants and the day after it will be everyone else. Nurses currently get paid 130% for working on a saturday - soon it will be plain time just like the rest. Who in their right mind would agree to work on a saturday for no extra money?
4. Medical recruitment. This year, application to specialties was at an all time low. They couldnt even fill all the surgical posts. Dropping this on an already demoralised workforce will shatter recruitment to specialty posts. Mr Hunt himself admitted that the problem at weekends isnt the lack of juniors but that of senior decision makers. All well and good spouting '7-day NHS' every other sentence, but when there will be no consultants in 10 years time that is a policy sure to fail
5. Mortality at weekends. This is probably the biggest problem with everything. The studies which the health secretary keeps trotting out do NOT say this at all. It is the 30-day mortality for patients admitted at weekends. Actual mortality at weekends is LOWER. This is not due to problems at the weekends; it is because patients who present to hospital at the weekend tend to be sicker. Put simply, people do not want to go to the hospital a weekends unless they are severely unwell.
6. Out of program study. Currently, if you take time out of the NHS to do an academic fellowship or a PhD (necessary for both innovation in the NHS as well as being able to actually get a consultants post) you slot back in to your program at the same place but with a slightly higher pay level, firstly to appreciate what you have done and also to encourage people to follow other forms of study. The new contract wants to remove this entirely. This is important to ensure that people who take time out in order to study, say, a cure for cancer or have a baby will be unfairly penalised against.
7. the lies the health secretary tells. Not only does he keep saying that 'mortality is higher on weekends' (despite being called out on in in parliament today) which is simply not true, but he keeps saying that the BMA has failed to negotiate. This again is simply not true; the BMA originally agreed to talks, then again at acas, not the government. He says that pay is increasing, despite the fact that calculations show hes wrong. He says that hours worked will be less, despite this being simply wrong as well as rebranding saturday as normal hours.
These are just some of the reasons why doctors and other workers are so irate. If you want to see more, visit the BMA's website where there is much more information.
Agree with me, or dont. But you will definitely see doctors emigrating for a better life or resigning and working in anything other than Mr Hunt's NHS.
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. I know all about the pay cuts via the back door, the pay freezes, the pension cuts, the subsidies reductions, the redundancies, the impositions, the under manning, the publicity spins, the skewering of numbers, the paper soldiers. So forgive me if I appear a little hardened against empathy been sought by the junior doctors.