Poll: Doctors strike tomorrow, do you support it?

Junior Doctor's Strike, do you support it?

  • Yes

    Votes: 438 59.4%

  • No

    Votes: 299 40.6%
  • Total voters
    737
Minstadave said:
Doctors are stuck (I am one) as the Government have shown they'll just pay lip service to negotiations and impose their own agenda, without striking you're limited to leaving the UK or leaving medicine.

Communication has been a problem throughout this whole process, most Drs are busy working and not very PR savvy so it's been a mess.

What the strike is about is:

1. Imposition of a contract under the premise of 7 day working, something that is not defined, costed or practical - JDs already work 7 days
2. An across the board pay cut, hidden by "pay protection" and sold by the government as a "basic pay rise"
3. Saturday day time and evenings being considered a normal weekday
4. More of weekday evenings being considered normal hours
5. A self confessed sexist contract that penalises part time workers
6. A destruction of the safeguards against unpaid extra work
7. Destruction of Locum agencies and loss of free market for Locum work
8. Drs are obliged to offer their time to their own hospital at a fixed rate if they want to do extra work
9. Significant increase in pension contributions
10. Laughable non-resident on call rates

Beyond all that is my main worry in that this contract will destroy recruitment, a lot of Locum staff who most hospitals are utterly reliant on will move on and permanent staff will move too.

We are already seeing half filled rotas just from the agency fee cap, which is due to move to lower pay shortly. I'm not sure the NHS will survive the next winter honestly.
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See, this just highlights some very dubious reasoning I see on behalf of the junior doctors.

They already work 7 day weeks. The change is that certain shifts, including Saturday shifts, are no longer 'unsociable hours'. The practical effect of this is they get paid more for working unsocial hours. There is (as far as I can tell) little to suggest they will be working MORE hours, just that they will being paid less for them.

So, it appears to me that the whole 'unsafe hours' claim is total nonsense. Doctors are willing to work the hours if they are paid well for them.

That said, I full support the strike because they shouldn't have significant cuts to pay. Just they shouldn't be so disingenuous about it.
 
Dolph said:
In every contract change dispute, most of the workforce threatens to leave, most don't. Doctors are not special unique ********** who somehow behave differently to everyone else.
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Lovely random aside - but this doesn't answer my question. Where have I lied?
 
Having recently been subject to a bungled government pay and benefits review, I support it. In as much as I don't oppose it, anyway :p

:edit: To be clear however - from what I can see at least - neither side has conducted themselves in an honest manner. I do understand that this may be a case of one side being dragged down to the other's level!
 
Minstadave said:
No it won't be the same as weekend as far as I have seen talking to our management team. Trusts have drafted in extra senior cover so that the normal weekday reviews will occur of all inpatients, all investigations should still be available as all the auxiliary staff are present as per a normal weekday (radiographers/theatre staff etc).

There'll be some variation but no it's not weekend service.
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My mother in law was in during the last strike (unfortunately she passed away at the weekend). You are lying, either to those you are posting to if you don't believe what you have written above, or to yourself if you think it is true.
 
Nitefly said:
See, this just highlights some very dubious reasoning I see on behalf of the junior doctors.

They already work 7 day weeks. The change is that certain shifts, including Saturday shifts, are no longer 'unsociable hours'. The practical effect of this is they get paid more for working unsocial hours. There is (as far as I can tell) little to suggest they will be working MORE hours, just that they will being paid less for them.

So, it appears to me that the whole 'unsafe hours' claim is total nonsense. Doctors are willing to work the hours if they are paid well for them.

That said, I full support the strike because they shouldn't have significant cuts to pay. Just they shouldn't be so disingenuous about it.
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As things stand hours will be unchanged, but they may be more antisocial, the new contract allows for some odd rota patterns.

What is more worrying is the stripping out of protection for overwork - we had a functional system that protected us well - the new system is utterly toothless.
 
wordy said:
Ignore him, he's the most boring troll on this site.
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Someone tried this in the last thread rather than countering h3e actual arguments made. A sign of desperation.

Holding a position that is unpopular with some, but cant be countered in rational debate isn't a troll, it's a flaw in your argument with a diversionary fallacy to try and hide it.
 
wordy said:
So because you don't get it they shouldn't either then?
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No, but if you are entering a job that under it's normal operation is 24/7, then what's different about being scheduled to work on a Sat or Sun? And getting a Tue/Wed or Mon/Thur off?

It's a bit of an archaic tradition in the modern world that Sat & Sun are still seemed as sacrosanct, especially as I say, in a service that is required 24/7

(Not sure why your quote had someone elses name on it!)
 
Rroff said:
Yeah that is the other thing - I only half understand each side so can't make a fully informed opinion so kind of sitting on the fence.
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Doctors like overtime. Doctors make the majority of their money from overtime.
New contract won't allow them to garner the same overtime, and their maximum working hours are drastically reduced.
Also, their hours for basic pay are increased and now include saturdays up until 2100(?)
Can you imagine working a 5 day week and then a Saturday and still only take home basic pay? I can, and it sucks balls.

Their basic pay rises a bit, but their OT drops a lot.
 
It's all about the cash. Junior doctors are only able to hide it because health is such an emotive issue that surely it couldn't be about something as base as money. Surely??

Plenty of them seem to have even convinced themselves that it's actually about patient care as well. I remain sceptical.
 
Minstadave said:
As things stand hours will be unchanged, but they may be more antisocial, the new contract allows for some odd rota patterns.

What is more worrying is the stripping out of protection for overwork - we had a functional system that protected us well - the new system is utterly toothless.
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What you mean is the new system doesn't put more money in doctors pockets like the old one does....
 
Dolph said:
Trying to pretend this is about the patients, when it is 100% about the doctors.
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Which is what I've said, you even quoted it. The strike is about doctors pay and conditions, how many times can I repeat this?

But you can not completely separate that from patients, this contract will have an effect on staffing, retention and recruitment of the people that look after patients. This isn't some huge leap to make Dolph - you can do it.
 
Dolph said:
In every contract change dispute, most of the workforce threatens to leave, most don't. Doctors are not special unique ********** who somehow behave differently to everyone else.
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Except Doctors are in demand all over the world, and mostly get paid a lot better than in the UK.
I have friends who are sucking it up just now, but if the contracts are enforced as the government plans, they are off to Canada and Australia.
 
Dolph said:
Someone tried this in the last thread rather than countering h3e actual arguments made. A sign of desperation.

Holding a position that is unpopular with some, but cant be countered in rational debate isn't a troll, it's a flaw in your argument with a diversionary fallacy to try and hide it.
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I don't think you're a troll. But I don't think you've ever countered an argument with anything but burying your head in the sand and crying about doctors using patient safety unfairly. You make bold claims that I'm lying but quote posts showing that I'm very clear about my position.
 
Reluctantly, yes. I used to work in the NHS and what I find appalling is the way whenever the government is about to do something bad to doctors, they get a bunch of papers to run hit pieces in the weeks running up - a sort of pre-emptive strike. I remember shortly before some very fundamental changes were made under New Labour there was this sudden out of the blue rash of "GPs earning £240,000 per year!" type stories. Seriously - lots of them. And THEN changes to Primary Care were quietly announced. I remember one of my colleagues who was a GP commenting: "I'm not complaining - I get a good income as a partner in a practice... but it's nothing like that." (It was around £70,000 in his case if you're interested, a non-partner would take home far less and he'd spent years buying into the practice).

I see similar runs of stories a month or two ago. Hospital doctors work absurd hours (your local GP can sometimes be similar). Anyone here who has routinely done a high number of hours for long periods, knows how exhausting it is.

Doctors are in an even more difficult position than other people in such a situation because cutting back on the hours isn't just about deciding to earn less money (or at all about that). It means you're leaving suffering people unattended. We can't keep holding that moral axe over their necks to keep them working themselves to death.
 
Minstadave said:
Which is what I've said, you even quoted it. The strike is about doctors pay and conditions, how many times can I repeat this?

But you can not completely separate that from patients, this contract will have an effect on staffing, retention and recruitment of the people that look after patients. This isn't some huge leap to make Dolph - you can do it.
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The BMA claim it will have those things, that's not quite the same as saying it will. Trade unions always cry doom and gloom and disaster to pretty much any opposed change, it doesn't mean they are right.

Serious question, do you think doctors will behave differently to any other group of employees or not?
 
People seem to have some chip on their shoulder and though are against the changes, they dont support the strike out of principle due to some union members passing it off as a move to keep a certain level of patient care. It doesn't matter what reasons are given as the primary reason is, the doctors are being treated unfairly and in any other industry there would be striking.

-They are working a job like everyone else. Doctors, like police/firemen/transport workers, have the right to strike to protect their job conditions, neither you or your neighbour are entitled to have them work for you if they disagree with the conditions of work being implemented.

-Their contract is being changed considerably and it will drive people away from training to enter the industry.

-If their normal work week/hours are being increased, then there needs to be an appropriate pay rise for it, not a pay cut poorly disguised as a rise in basic pay.

-Whether this is about patient care or not, patient care will be effected when recruitment for the NHS and Jr Dr trainees are down in number

-Wont save any money if we continue to alienate doctors. We currently pay huge amounts hiring private medical professionals through agencies to make up the numbers of NHS staff required. These laws will drive more people to the private sector and increase the need to hire privately. No money save and more staff needed in the end.
 
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