Junior Doctors Strikes

Semple said:
The problem is a 15-20% payrise to doctors wouldn't suddenly magically make the NHS run better. It might lift the morale of doctors briefly, but with the same hours and demands being placed on the NHS we'd be back to square 1 in a few months.

Ideally Doctors hours need to be cut and more of them recruited. That way they're not overworked/exhausted, and with the hours they'd be expected to work you'd assume higher productivity levels.
Click to expand...

What is needed is a combination of valuing existing staff, that would be a combination of pay/simplifying barriers to extra work/fixing the pension scheme/funding professional development alongside investing in the long term staffing situation.

Currently we don't train enough nurses/doctors, we don't retain the ones we've got and we're on course to everything just falling over in the near future (it feels entirely intentional to most of us at this point).

The likelihood is once the NHS collapses everyone that was working within it will see a substantial increase in pay and better working conditions.
 
adam cool dude said:
People are also way more savvy now especially with social media and internet. Why spend years training up when you can just sit in an office doing finance 9-5 Monday to Friday. If you are academic enough to become a doctor you are academic enough to have a way easier life earning good wedge.

This is going to be a major problem in a generation time as these are key jobs for a normal functioning country and the people who do these should be rewarded.
Click to expand...
Or just become a social media influencer and earn millions :cry:
 
fez said:
Increasing pay is unlikely to ever put someone off a job but you have to consider the knock-on effect of these things. If one band gets a 10% increase it will make the next bad need the same and so on. Its a complicated thing to fix without absolutely killing the budget. If a job is super stressful its often because you are overloaded with work and increasing the number of staff helps a lot with that.

Depends on how skilled work is as well and what someone with that skillset could get elsewhere. All needs to be balanced.
Click to expand...

This is also starting to become apparent in roles that were above minimum wage but haven't kept pace with other jobs in the market. And with the minimum wage rises over the last few years these roles are starting to fall down to min wage.

I.e. the private hospital my missus works at, the admin staff there were a reasonable amount above minimum wage 10 years ago. This year with the increase in minimum wage these jobs will now actually fall under this threshold meaning the company has to increase their wages to not fall foul of minimum wage law. Yes it's on the company for not keeping the salary for these roles up. It's also interesting that the pool of prospective candidates has become worse - pay peanuts get monkeys as the saying goes.
 
NVP said:
Or... in a finte world priorities have to be made #poordr911
Click to expand...
Agreed, but this finite world includes a lot of other countries where pay and working conditions are better and they're quite happy to take UK trained doctors. I've seen numerous Paediatric trainees (another term that needs to go) head off to brighter shores the last few years.
 
Last edited:
They're also happy to take our IT and finance specialists...

The issues are more related to working conditions and understaffing due to poor management, than to "poor pay" for jnrs.
 
Last edited:
Semple said:
The problem is a 15-20% payrise to doctors wouldn't suddenly magically make the NHS run better. It might lift the morale of doctors briefly, but with the same hours and demands being placed on the NHS we'd be back to square 1 in a few months.

Ideally Doctors hours need to be cut and more of them recruited. That way they're not overworked/exhausted, and with the hours they'd be expected to work you'd assume higher productivity levels.
Click to expand...

If you are offering better pay you will either have doctors returning to the profession or more people deciding to take it up as a profession. There is no magic bullet to fix this over night. It will take decades.
 
Last edited:
NVP said:
The issues are more related to working conditions and understaffing due to poor management, than to "poor pay" for jnrs.
Click to expand...
Based on what experience?

Pay is linked to understaffing, retention and recruitment. Particularly when you look at overtime rates trust are offering these days it's no surprise the place is understaffed. It's not the only issue, but working conditions are better when you've got enough staff. "Poor management" is a nebulous term that gets thrown around easily but doesn't mean anything.

I used to do loads of extra shifts during my JD years, we struggle to get anyone to touch them now as rates have been capped.

It's not necessarily the headline pay figure that's the issue, so many consultants are cutting sessions and avoiding extra work because of the annual allowance problem with a DB pension. The renumeration for extra work just isn't there, so people are just not doing it.
 
Last edited:
It's just crazy.

For years the NHS has been underfunded. The result is poor staff morale and issues with equipment.

If you want to recruit more nurses and doctors you simply have to make it a job people WANT TO DO.

Pay and conditions matter. Training more staff is just pointless if they don't stay in teh job or dissapear off to countries that value them.

The UK puts about 18% less per head of population into the NHS than comparable EU countries. If we want a better NHS we simply have to pay for it either by not spending money elsewhere or by paying more taxes.
 
Hodders said:
It's just crazy.

For years the NHS has been underfunded. The result is poor staff morale and issues with equipment.

If you want to recruit more nurses and doctors you simply have to make it a job people WANT TO DO.

Pay and conditions matter. Training more staff is just pointless if they don't stay in teh job or dissapear off to countries that value them.

The UK puts about 18% less per head of population into the NHS than comparable EU countries. If we want a better NHS we simply have to pay for it either by not spending money elsewhere or by paying more taxes.
Click to expand...

Exactly. When we're ill we want to be looked after by people who enjoy their job, are invested in, are not overstretched and working in an environment that is resourced appropriately.

I look at adult care at the moment and it's horrifying.
 
i wonder..................... and i could be way off base as i am not in the profession.

but if the government want more people to go into the profession, maybe it would be better to offer to write off all student education related debts for doctors and nurses after they have put x number of years into the NHS.

this would make the careers more attractive as ultimately would not be saddled with a debt so long as they stay in NHS (but they still have to actually pass, rather than making it free for all and having people take the mick on the course)
it would keep the staff in the NHS for a number of years so less turnover
AND it would kick the can down the road somewhat as they would not have to pay the money today (but could instead pay one of the umpteen other failing services).

this would not fix the issue now unfortunately, but it may help stop some of the current junior doctors from chuntering too much if they know a bunch of their debts will be wiped out.

more experienced doctors without the debts would not gain, but then presumably they are on a better deal anyway?
 
Last edited:
Minstadave said:
Based on what experience?

Pay is linked to understaffing, retention and recruitment. Particularly when you look at overtime rates trust are offering these days it's no surprise the place is understaffed. It's not the only issue, but working conditions are better when you've got enough staff. "Poor management" is a nebulous term that gets thrown around easily but doesn't mean anything.

I used to do loads of extra shifts during my JD years, we struggle to get anyone to touch them now as rates have been capped.

It's not necessarily the headline pay figure that's the issue, so many consultants are cutting sessions and avoiding extra work because of the annual allowance problem with a DB pension. The renumeration for extra work just isn't there, so people are just not doing it.
Click to expand...

So the real reason there isn't enough staff is due to the pay not being sufficient? Hhmm... I know over worked Dr's, I know under appreciated Dr's, I dont know any poor Dr's...:confused:

Poor management is an adequate term to describe the downfall of our NHS, yes it may not be the detailed answer you wish for but it is accurate none the less.

If they're struggling to fill additional shifts because JD's don't want to do OT that's not a pay issue, that's a staffing issue. A management issue.
 
bigmike20vt said:
but if the government want more people to go into the profession, maybe it would be better to offer to write off all student education related debts for doctors and nurses after they have put x number of years into the NHS.
Click to expand...
This is such a cheap way of encouraging people into the profession it seems a no brainer. Sadly the government did the opposite and killed off nursing bursaries/free accommodation for junior doctors and nurses etc. Accomodation went years ago and it was pretty obvious that was a stupid idea - having the people in highest demand living on site, usually before the had kids, meant finding people to do overtime was easy.

Having said that there are plenty of young able people wanting to do medicine and not enough University places to take them all regardless. They just don't stay after qualifying.
 
Last edited:
NVP said:
If they're struggling to fill additional shifts because JD's don't want to do OT that's not a pay issue, that's a staffing issue. A management issue.
Click to expand...
Having enough permanent staff so rota gaps are minimised/non-existent is a management/staffing issue, but incentivising current JDs to cover said rota gaps is absolutely a pay issue.
 
Semple said:
This is also starting to become apparent in roles that were above minimum wage but haven't kept pace with other jobs in the market. And with the minimum wage rises over the last few years these roles are starting to fall down to min wage.

I.e. the private hospital my missus works at, the admin staff there were a reasonable amount above minimum wage 10 years ago. This year with the increase in minimum wage these jobs will now actually fall under this threshold meaning the company has to increase their wages to not fall foul of minimum wage law. Yes it's on the company for not keeping the salary for these roles up. It's also interesting that the pool of prospective candidates has become worse - pay peanuts get monkeys as the saying goes.
Click to expand...

Not a lot seems to get said about this.
My work place is in a similar position and we had bands (So you'd maybe have like 5 rungs on the ladder to go up)

Some of our wage bands have just disappeared with minimum wage and if it continues to go on we'll have whole swathes of jobs on minimum wage that we can't recruit for
 
tamzzy said:
Having enough permanent staff so rota gaps are minimised/non-existent is a management/staffing issue, but incentivising current JDs to cover said rota gaps is absolutely a pay issue.
Click to expand...
So it seems Jnr Dr pay is OK for their actual job then? As incentivising anyone to work OT is always a pay issue regardless of sector.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom