Associate
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- 17 Sep 2018
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Doctors have to pay tax too though
Junior Doctors Strikes
- Thread starter Dr House
- Start date
Doctors have to pay tax too though
The place my brother in law works pays around that £15 an hour as a starting wage, no training or experience needed, and they struggle to gain and retain staff because it's hot, heavy physical work.
Any plumber/electrician is getting at least that sort of level without tens of thousands of debt and the highly unsociable hours any medical professional is expected to do.
They do but a £350/day price is a charge out rate before any overhead which presumably covers VAT, corporation tax, running a van, tools, business insurance, public liability insurance, van insurance, non-chargeable time like quotes, invoicing, marketing, acountant, pension etc.
I could go on but I just cant see how comparing the charge out rate of a business before any overhead to someone on a PAYE salary is even remotely relivent.
It is clearly a false equivlence.
Quite, ten years ago my charge out rate was £640 per diem. No way was i getting more than a fraction of that. I retired seven years ago so I don't know what my charge out rate would be today.
Out of interest, how old were you when you were able to retire?
Associate
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My son is wanting to go study medicine in September and has a couple of conditional offers pending grades in a level next month. I feel like a bad dad but I am trying to talk him out of it. It feels like a hell of a lot of hard work and stress combined with a huge debt and a low salary as a reward.
yeah, nuh-uh. if your kiddo really wants to do medicine, do it...but work abroad would be my advice
Do it, but only if they have a good idea what they’re getting into. Healthcare will have changed massively by the time he gets to consultant level so quite hard to predict. It’s a cool, interesting and rewarding career. Hard work, but what interesting job isn’t? I guess doctors are rich in other ways than purely financial.
Associate
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- Wiltshire
We’re quite a travelled family. Kids were born in Malaysia for instance. I believe he will want to work overseas as soon as possible.
It’s not really talking him out of it but not really pushing him into it. Ultimately it’s his choice but I’m trying to be sure he makes the right decision.
It’s not really talking him out of it but not really pushing him into it. Ultimately it’s his choice but I’m trying to be sure he makes the right decision.
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jobs like engineering are easier for long term relocation over-seas , no re-qualification, language fluency less important(how many foreign doctors in the uk do your parents encounter
who cannot speak english clearly/competently, so the reciprocal of that)
young doctors just seem to have become militant out of all reason stoked by social media (just like what farage is able to inculcate on immigration)
who cannot speak english clearly/competently, so the reciprocal of that)
young doctors just seem to have become militant out of all reason stoked by social media (just like what farage is able to inculcate on immigration)
Caporegime
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I wouldnt encourage my kids to train as a doctor in this country, if they were deadset on it the plan should be to leave on completing training immediately.
The quality of training is poor, the quality of people providing healthcare has been allowed to nose dive, the value we place on doctors is next to zero, working in the NHS is soul destroying.
The quality of training is poor, the quality of people providing healthcare has been allowed to nose dive, the value we place on doctors is next to zero, working in the NHS is soul destroying.
I've been a qualified doctor now for 22 years. The job is demonstrably harder, busier and more unpleasant than it used to be when I first qualified. That doesnt mean there are no good bits about my job, and I can still enjoy things, but I certainly now consider myself in the period of life where I am looking at what I can do to survive to retirement age, and when I can afford to stop working. I don't believe I can work how I do now at 68.
When junior doctors see the pay erosion (my first job I was paid just slightly over 30k due to my rota 22 years ago, so put that into any inflation calculator) at the same time as the worsening of the job it's not surprising they are becoming militant, and I don't believe its out of all reason. A few years just before covid many of my juniors I'd been involved in training were going abroad after their F2 roles. Now sadly we have seen quite a number who no longer do medicine when we've checked how getting on a year or 2 later. These are good doctors who we were contacting hoping they might want to train as GPs with us.
Unfortunately in my heart of hearts I don't really believe the situation is salvageable now and doctors and patients alike will have to deal with a semi managed decline of the service
Caporegime
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I don't get thay feeling. They've finally deciding to not be total pushovers and the BMA has finally found some backbone.
It doesnt feel militant, more like they've discovered a sense of value when the profession has been steadily devalued by the government for years. I welcome it.
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It will be interesting to see what other roles in the public sector will demand almost immediate Pay Restoration should the doctors get theirs. I feel it would likely bankrupt the country if they all got it and, if the doctors get it, what legitimate reason(s) are there to deny the others?
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You can't compare a service to a salary. The plumber doesn't get a guaranteed payday 5 days a week - a professional does.
Caporegime
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This is why the Government want to hold out hell for leather. Even if the strikes cost more than full pay restoration its cheaper than facing a general strike.
In an ideal world we would pay them more, but we are not in an ideal world, and at the moment I have little support for these strikes, and for context, I am a center-left voter who historically would have sympathy. Also some of the rhetoric the BMA is using about these demands not being open for negotiation is not the best PR move.
1. We simply don't have enough public money to pay their pay demands. If we give in to these demands now, we will have to quite rightly pay the other state-run professions a similar amount.
2. The BMA is using the wrong inflation calculations. CPI is probably the correct way to measure, and in this regard resident doctors’ pay has fallen by 4.7% since 2008
3. Their pensions form part of the package, yet the BMA seems to never mention this.
4. I often have to use actuarial tables, which show average UK salaries. As of 2022, the average doctor's salary is £68,364 (median) and £84,955 (mean). Specialists earn £77,863 (median) and £91,206 (mean). These figures don't include the pension, nor do they take into account the previous pay raises. These are good salaries in comparison to almost every other career in the UK.
5. Doctors have excellent career paths open to them, and their salaries can rocket if they are (a) good at this job and (b) spend time in their profession. This is the same as the other comparative professions. In my profession, I often have to instruct doctors to draft court reports, and quite frankly, the money they charge is extortionate.
6. The salary/package is not a secret when they apply to medical school.
7. The medical schools have way more applicants than places, so it's not like we are struggling to attract people to train. Yes, we have a shortage of qualified doctors in the NHS, but this has been the case for years given the increased demand, and we should definitely train more.
In short - it would be nice to pay them more, but there is little chance they get their demands met. It will be interesting to see what their actual bottom line is.
1. We simply don't have enough public money to pay their pay demands. If we give in to these demands now, we will have to quite rightly pay the other state-run professions a similar amount.
2. The BMA is using the wrong inflation calculations. CPI is probably the correct way to measure, and in this regard resident doctors’ pay has fallen by 4.7% since 2008
3. Their pensions form part of the package, yet the BMA seems to never mention this.
4. I often have to use actuarial tables, which show average UK salaries. As of 2022, the average doctor's salary is £68,364 (median) and £84,955 (mean). Specialists earn £77,863 (median) and £91,206 (mean). These figures don't include the pension, nor do they take into account the previous pay raises. These are good salaries in comparison to almost every other career in the UK.
5. Doctors have excellent career paths open to them, and their salaries can rocket if they are (a) good at this job and (b) spend time in their profession. This is the same as the other comparative professions. In my profession, I often have to instruct doctors to draft court reports, and quite frankly, the money they charge is extortionate.
6. The salary/package is not a secret when they apply to medical school.
7. The medical schools have way more applicants than places, so it's not like we are struggling to attract people to train. Yes, we have a shortage of qualified doctors in the NHS, but this has been the case for years given the increased demand, and we should definitely train more.
In short - it would be nice to pay them more, but there is little chance they get their demands met. It will be interesting to see what their actual bottom line is.
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