Poll: Doctors strike tomorrow, do you support it?
- Thread starter Dr House
- Start date
Nurses are underpaid relative to everyone for what they do.
Also the doctors pay scale starts at the same value as the nursing pay scale.
Yup. Opinions are bound to be more polarised now that we're having five consecutive days of all out stoppages.
It's incredibly to me that May didn't take the opportunity to fire toxic and incompetent Hunt when she reshuffled. The man is an absolute disaster.
Only a complete cretin would believe that you can provide a service open more of the time without giving it more money, yet alone at a time when spending is reducing in real terms, and while the government's needless top-down re-organisation is settling in.
All power to the Junior Doctors' arms.
Only a complete cretin would believe that you can provide a service open more of the time without giving it more money, yet alone at a time when spending is reducing in real terms, and while the government's needless top-down re-organisation is settling in.
All power to the Junior Doctors' arms.
It's not far off. I get 14.50 per hour of you don't count all free good will hours I do.
"Savings"? What "savings"? The idea that you can introduce significant efficiency savings to the NHS is a complete fantasy of the right, and the idea you can do so without significant investment even more so. And as for lower quality of service; you need a lot lower quality of service to provide Hunt's lunatic idea, which - given that his supposed reason was to improve quality of service - would be doubly ironic.
Soldato
- Joined
- 1 Mar 2010
- Posts
- 6,316
Leaving any sabotage and privatisation theories to one side for the moment: The savings you get from cutting local services, centralising and pursuing the proposed STPs across the board. Hunt's already the fall-guy and has got little to lose. Furthermore, much of the 7-day nonsense hinged on Osborne meeting his fiscal targets; he failed. And since we aren't getting any phantom money from Brexit (which would've still left a £10-billion-plus gap in NHS funds, provided it was all channelled there), Hammond and Hunt will keep ploughing on with what the STPs will throw up. Straight cutting. Honest austerity.
Sneaky-beaky too; Brexit, immigration, broken opposition and even the JDs' strike is a very convenient smokescreen. In fact, have a look at how quickly STP and non-JD NHS stories get crowded out of the air. Indeed, it's in Hunt's best interest to escalate things on this thread's issue further, turn the tide of public opinion against the strikers and then 'do the necessary thing', followed by some gardening leave on the backbenches.
To her credit, Abbott, I think, piped up about it but to little effect. The government isn't under any serious pressure or scrutiny, for the time being.
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 16 May 2005
- Posts
- 31,297
- Location
- Manchester
I still support the junior doctors 100%. I really hope they manage to make the government back down on this.
I spoke to a friend a little while ago that didn't agree. Reasons given were that "in my job I have detrimental changes imposed upon me" and "the BMA haven't told me why they are striking". As much as I like the guy I have no sympathy for either of those. I strike when I can (i.e. when UCU get backing from the membership) to try and ensure that our jobs aren't made even worse than they already are by the constant erosion of working conditions by senior management here. Also, when I heard about the junior doctors' strike I went out and found out the facts myself. I really despair of the amount of people that seem to be happy to be spoon fed information by either biased sources or hearsay.
I spoke to a friend a little while ago that didn't agree. Reasons given were that "in my job I have detrimental changes imposed upon me" and "the BMA haven't told me why they are striking". As much as I like the guy I have no sympathy for either of those. I strike when I can (i.e. when UCU get backing from the membership) to try and ensure that our jobs aren't made even worse than they already are by the constant erosion of working conditions by senior management here. Also, when I heard about the junior doctors' strike I went out and found out the facts myself. I really despair of the amount of people that seem to be happy to be spoon fed information by either biased sources or hearsay.
The comments section in the Daily Mail makes for terrifying reading! There's nothing like being in the middle of a huge political row to make you really read up on the facts and understand quite how powerful the government spin machine really is.
datalol-jack: I would actually say that although the government isn't under pressure from opposition parties, there has never been greater pressure from the voting public than there is now. It may be wishful thinking, but I genuinely believe that the government will delay the contract imposition (already delayed for 2 months) as a result of this. There are big news stories about how the NHS is facing massive cut backs which are becoming entangled with this contract story, but at least it is in the public eye at the same time.
Soldato
- Joined
- 3 Oct 2006
- Posts
- 8,537
From what I understand emergency care is provided all week anyway, the only thing that doesn't happen at the weekend is planned surgery, that all happens in the week when there are more doctors available.
The common argument that is trotted out is that statistically you are more likely to die if admitted at the weekend however this is purely because all people admitted at the weekend are emergencies and therefore at greater risk of dying whereas in the week a large number of people admitted are not for emergencies and therefore are more likely to live therefore skewing the statistic.
My brother in law is a newly graduated doctor and is now working full time as a doctor, he is in favour of of strikes and I think he's fairly reasonable and certainly would would unlikely to strike purely for money.
The common argument that is trotted out is that statistically you are more likely to die if admitted at the weekend however this is purely because all people admitted at the weekend are emergencies and therefore at greater risk of dying whereas in the week a large number of people admitted are not for emergencies and therefore are more likely to live therefore skewing the statistic.
My brother in law is a newly graduated doctor and is now working full time as a doctor, he is in favour of of strikes and I think he's fairly reasonable and certainly would would unlikely to strike purely for money.
I know people who have recently had major surgery at the weekend; one of the 'team' that work under/with the professor in charge of treatment perform surgery three days a week, Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday (all day).
Operations do happen at the weekends; not just for emergency cases.
I support the strike by the way.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 8 Jan 2004
- Posts
- 32,911
- Location
- Rutland
Waiting list iniatives happen at the weekends if the list is massive but normally most elective work is weekdays.
I had my ankle done at the weekend and it was excellent! The admissions unit was calm and peaceful! I think the list was an elective list, although whether it was an incentive list I'm not sure.
I think some trusts are offering consultant contracts with scheduled sessions on the weekend. I would feel extremely uneasy if I were to be offered a weekend elective list in the current system (as the new guy I imagine ending up with the crappest session). The reason for this is that the regular ward team wouldn't be there to attend to the patients with the same frequency as they'd be inundated with emergencies which are often more pressing! The new junior contract would in theory open up the door to having junior doctor support on the weekends without financial penalty to the trusts for scheduling the existing employees to work at the weekend. The big problem that I can see with this is that on such a miserable shift based system that they're proposing there would be no continuity of care, no opportunity for learning - this is massively important if patients are to be managed properly - and staff would be thinner on the ground as there would be no extra funding to hire more doctors for the extra 2 days worth of work above and beyond what happens currently.
I genuinely don't know what will happen, but I think the damage over the last few years to the NHS has become irreversible.
The quote was posted Mid April and my feelings haven't and won't change. I agree with the Doctors but not their unforgivable actions.
Again I sympathise with the reduced pay but I fail to see how the new contract will actually endanger patients.... Certainly in comparison to four five-day strikes?!
An overwhelming lack of adequately trained doctors for one thing. Who wants to do medicine these days? Applicant numbers are down, 50% of foundation doctors are not entering speciality training. They're either going abroad, or leaving medicine all together, because it is a toxic career to be in at the moment. The new contract makes it even worse. Combined with the cuts everywhere, the huge rota gaps that mean doctors are covering up to THREE positions on their own, and ever growing fees every year.. why the hell would a sane person pick this career?
I have amazing doctor friends who save lives on a near constant basis, and end up in tears in the middle of their shift. There is only so much they can do until it destroys them and we lose the last of them.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 8 Jan 2004
- Posts
- 32,911
- Location
- Rutland
Again I sympathise with the reduced pay but I fail to see how the new contract will actually endanger patients.... Certainly in comparison to four five-day strikes?!
There's a worry about spreading the workforce more thinly to try and work this notion of 7 day cover.
There's also the worry about the damage to recruitment and retention of staff which were already seeing becoming a real issue and we've not even brought the new contract in to play. I've not seen rota gaps on a scale as they are currently and we're seeing attempts to shore up the numbers with inadequately trained physicians assistants.
At the end of the day it's mostly an argument about pay and conditions. The two day strikes didn't endanger patients, I can't see the 5 day ones will either but they will cause delays and disruption as a whole. There's also an element of wanting to resist this Governments drive to run the NHS and our profession into the ground. There's got the Torygraph writing about how Doctors are relatively well paid compared to other shift workers, I'm not a factory worker I'm a professional who looks after some of the sickest children in the UK on a daily basis.
Last edited:
That's all well and good if you take a simplistic view of things and judge the damage on what may (and was proven to not occur last time) on the industrial action without considering what damage such action may prevent. I think the operative word there is simplistic. This is a tad more complex than you've narrowed it down to there.
Doctors are handsomely paid already, so I don't really sympathise with their moaning about changes to weekend pay.
All sectors of industry go through reform, the medical profession is not exempt. And jeopardising the lives of patients to make your point is very poor form.
All sectors of industry go through reform, the medical profession is not exempt. And jeopardising the lives of patients to make your point is very poor form.