Junior Doctors Strikes

iamtheoneneo · 21 Feb 2023 at 07:29

Honestly I feel these walkouts should be longer...government knows they can just bring in support or ride it out for a few days.

I'm sure there is no doubt a law to prevent that but at this point we should be all wondering what the **** this shambolic government is doing because I ain't seeing much.

tres · 21 Feb 2023 at 07:30

b0rn2sk8 said:
Don’t forget in that period tuition fees went mental so they are also coming out of uni with insane debt after an 5 year degree course. That’s a 9% pay cut on everything over £27k they earn for basically the rest of their working lives. The interest rate is 6.5% on what will be a >£70k loan which will grow by at least £4200 in the first year in interest.

To just cover the interest you need to earn £73k. A doctor will not reach that kind of salary to start clearing the interest until they reach a specialist grade which will not be for at least 4 years post graduate. By that point the loan will be in the £80k-90k range and they’ll need to earn >£77k to just cover the interest.

It’s absolutely crazy these people who were traditionally some of the highest paid in society will struggle to even clear their student loan in their career.

I checked mine last week.
Paid £16k so far.
Balance has increased £7k.

Goodie · 21 Feb 2023 at 07:35

Iron Man said:
Seriously people can’t seem to explore other peoples opinions on here and enjoy riling each other up.

Iron Man said:
Can’t be bothered to read your wall of text.

Okay!

CaptainRAVE · 21 Feb 2023 at 07:40

While we have an nhs that prioritises paying the big bucks to management, things won’t change. I don’t have a problem with paying doctors more if a) I can see one if I need to, they may as well not exist at the moment for minor to moderate ailments and b) it doesn’t increase my taxes and instead comes from the many inefficiencies in the nhs.

CaptainRAVE · 21 Feb 2023 at 07:42

Uther said:
Suppose those waiting lists are just going to get ever longer. Country is completely ******.

It’s a complete shambles. My wife needed a blood pressure check for her medication and was told to go to a pharmacy, but few actually do it. So instead she gets handed one over the counter at the doctors and told to do it herself. Nothing in this country seems to work anymore.

mid_gen · 21 Feb 2023 at 08:04

tres said:
I checked mine last week.
Paid £16k so far.
Balance has increased £7k.

Remember that when the Tories are spouting their drivel about a high-skill, high wage economy.

tres · 21 Feb 2023 at 08:13

CaptainRAVE said:
It’s a complete shambles. My wife needed a blood pressure check for her medication and was told to go to a pharmacy, but few actually do it. So instead she gets handed one over the counter at the doctors and told to do it herself. Nothing in this country seems to work anymore.

Why not buy one? £15, empowers you to monitor your own health, a home blood pressure reading is always more reliable than one at a doctors, and it'll pay itself off quickly with saved time

CaptainRAVE · 21 Feb 2023 at 08:14

tres said:
Why not buy one? £15, empowers you to monitor your own health, a home blood pressure reading is always more reliable than one at a doctors, and it'll pay itself off quickly with saved time

This is what we’ll do now.

b0rn2sk8 · 21 Feb 2023 at 08:21

tres said:
I checked mine last week.
Paid £16k so far.
Balance has increased £7k.

Yup, pretty much the reality of plan 2 and soon to be plan 5 loans for the vast majority of graduates.

I went to Uni in the final year of sensible fee levels. I still needed a loan to cover them and the full maintenance loan to go. Fortunately I’ll be released from my obligation in the next 18 months, if I was on a plan 2, I think I’d only just have started chipping away at the balance and I’d probably end up paying back many times more than I borrowed but ever actually get close to paying it off because the crazy interest payments.

fez · 21 Feb 2023 at 09:10

I would suggest that doctors are paid a pretty good wage. What they need to do is sort out the costs of all the exams and the university costs. A junior doctor is a liability and requires a lot of resources and training to be competent and autonomous. Thats kind of the trade off with their salary. What shouldn't be happening though is people coming out of university with mountains of debt to service when they are going into a highly skilled job that requires that education level.

Martynt74 · 21 Feb 2023 at 09:18

Agreed. I think that working for the NHS for X number of years should qualify for a debt write off.

That helps ensure people aren’t just getting qualified and going into private practice but stops it screwing the individuals.

Ahleckz · 21 Feb 2023 at 09:24

What I didn’t realise until recently is that a junior doctor may be a doctor that has five years post educational training but are still regarded as a junior doctor. I had assumed a junior doctor was someone fresh out of uni.

The top level of pay for a junior doctor as far as I can tell is £44,700. This seems very low for someone with such training and importance.

£44700 in 2005 is £72368 now…

Minstadave · 21 Feb 2023 at 09:43

Ahleckz said:
What I didn’t realise until recently is that a junior doctor may be a doctor that has five years post educational training but are still regarded as a junior doctor. I had assumed a junior doctor was someone fresh out of uni.

The top level of pay for a junior doctor as far as I can tell is £44,700. This seems very low for someone with such training and importance.

£44700 in 2005 is £72368 now…

10 years post graduating med school I was still a JD and apparently a "liability" - which some would probably agree to be fair but that's not changed even now.

The figure you're seeing is basic bay. A junior doctor can get a banding that adds a percentage on top of that depending on your rota/put of ours work. This banding used to be upto 100% pre-2010 ish dropped to 80%, then 50% in my first few years. Not sure what the top banding is now.

Minstadave · 21 Feb 2023 at 09:44

fez said:
I would suggest that doctors are paid a pretty good wage. What they need to do is sort out the costs of all the exams and the university costs. A junior doctor is a liability and requires a lot of resources and training to be competent and autonomous. Thats kind of the trade off with their salary. What shouldn't be happening though is people coming out of university with mountains of debt to service when they are going into a highly skilled job that requires that education level.

Calling a JD a liability is dubious. You can still be a JD 10 years after leaving medschool and working independently most of the time with just a consultant on the phone. You're very much competent and autonomous for most of your JD time.

The terminology is probably intentionally misleading. You can be both a JD and a "senior decision maker".

fez · 21 Feb 2023 at 09:57

Minstadave said:
Calling a JD a liability is dubious. You can still be a JD 10 years after leaving medschool and working independently most of the time with just a consultant on the phone. You're very much competent and autonomous for most of your JD time.

The terminology is probably intentionally misleading. You can be both a JD and a "senior decision maker".

What was your salary at after 10 years post medical school if you don't mind me asking. I assume it wasn't £45k/year?

Genuine question, because as with all these things, its very easy to say something that is technically true whilst ignoring the reality.

Minstadave · 21 Feb 2023 at 10:01

fez said:
What was your salary at after 10 years post medical school if you don't mind me asking. I assume it wasn't £45k/year?

Genuine question, because as with all these things, its very easy to say something that is technically true whilst ignoring the reality.

Good question, I would have to dig out payslips to answer properly. It would have been around 70k I would have thought.

Edit: I was 1B banded (40%) and on 43 basic so about £65k in 2017. Which would have been around 9 years post graduating.

Throughout almost all my years as JD inflation was low and payrises were either frozen or subinflation meaning I saw the main period of real terms paycuts. Now inflation is high and there Government plan to continue sub inflation rises. I fully support strike action and will be on the shop floor to allow the strikes to proceed safely.

NVP · 21 Feb 2023 at 10:12

Minstadave · 21 Feb 2023 at 10:15

NVP said:

Grow up. You trying to troll a reasonable discussion is wearisome.

fez · 21 Feb 2023 at 10:18

Minstadave said:
Good question, I would have to dig out payslips to answer properly. It would have been around 70k I would have thought.

Edit I was 1B banded (40%) and on 43 basic so about £65k in 2017. Which would have been around 9 years post graduating.

What has held back your earning potential as consultant pay seems to start at around £90k. Just not something you are interested in persuing?

As an aside, my partner is a very senior pharmacist and she has just snuck into the £70k pay bracket as an 8C. She has gone through the grades quite quickly and has been doing the job for 12 years now.

I agree that the NHS should pay more but new junior doctors are perhaps not the most "underpaid". Part of the issue is the the NHS is an absolute behemoth and any serious pay increase will cost billions and not really deliver a better service.

p.s. my partner is always whinging about doctors trying to kill patients with their prescriptions.

Minstadave · 21 Feb 2023 at 10:19

fez said:
What has held back your earning potential as consultant pay seems to start at around £90k. Just not something you are interested in persuing?

As an aside, my partner is a very senior pharmacist and she has just snuck into the £70k pay bracket as an 8C. She has gone through the grades quite quickly and has been doing the job for 12 years now.

I agree that the NHS should pay more but new junior doctors are perhaps not the most "underpaid". Part of the issue is the the NHS is an absolute behemoth and any serious pay increase will cost billions and not really deliver a better service.

p.s. my partner is always whinging about doctors trying to kill patients with their prescriptions.

I am a consultant now, sorry probably wasn't clear. About 4 and a bit years in.

The JDs whilst perhaps not the most underpaid have seen the greatest real terms cuts and erosion of overtime pay. They took an absolute bettering during COVID too.They do work less hours now though.