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How much do you think doctors should get paid?

Should junior doctors strike for 33% pay increase?


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And I expect Edie does these on calls because if she doesn't the service will be understaffed. Which is probably more dangerous.

You seem to ascribing bad motivations for Edie's workload and I'm not sure why. Care to explain?
Why isn’t Edie objecting to their workload? It’s dangerous for Edie and those requiring Edie’s care. That Edie expresses this alongside an objection to industrial action leads me to think that Edie agrees with regressive working practices. It isn’t for me to speculate on Edie’s motivations.
 
Why isn’t Edie objecting to their workload? It’s dangerous for Edie and those requiring Edie’s care. That Edie expresses this alongside an objection to industrial action leads me to think that Edie agrees with regressive working practices. It isn’t for me to speculate on Edie’s motivations.
Lol have you even watched the news lately - experienced consultants of standing bullied out of Birmingham hospitals because they objected to issues of safety. If one Trust is an unsafe place to work you can bet your bottom dollar they are all like that.

Perhaps when she has time she can come and explain.
 
I do think they should get the 33%, yes. It's unlikely they will, because it sounds like so much money, even though it's actually just them asking for the effective pay decreases over the last decade to be reversed. If I hire you on £100 a week, then reduce it to £75pw, then you asking for a 33% increase is actually you asking for your original pay to be restored, not even asking for an increase at all.

Nurses and HCAs are hugely underpaid, but they won't be helped by doctors being paid less as well.

The current wages are good, but not for that level of skill, training and responsibility.

(For some reason I thought you were a nurse, Edie. Guess I haven't kept track).

And yes, student loan forgiveness for all medical staff working in the NHS is a no-brainer.

I'd love to train to be a doctor, or even fully qualify as a nurse tbh but I can't get a second student loan for a second first degree. Little things like that make me suspect that someone, somewhere, doesn't want more healthcare staff trained in the uk.

Unless there's some other reason you can't get a second student loan, you can actually get a second undergrad student loan for some subjects, and medicine is one of them.
 
Lol have you even watched the news lately - experienced consultants of standing bullied out of Birmingham hospitals because they objected to issues of safety. If one Trust is an unsafe place to work you can bet your bottom dollar they are all like that.

Perhaps when she has time she can come and explain.
She thinks consultants shouldn’t be striking. On this very thread. Have you even read it?
 
I do think they should get the 33%, yes. It's unlikely they will, because it sounds like so much money, even though it's actually just them asking for the effective pay decreases over the last decade to be reversed. If I hire you on £100 a week, then reduce it to £75pw, then you asking for a 33% increase is actually you asking for your original pay to be restored, not even asking for an increase at all.

Nurses and HCAs are hugely underpaid, but they won't be helped by doctors being paid less as well.

The current wages are good, but not for that level of skill, training and responsibility.

(For some reason I thought you were a nurse, Edie. Guess I haven't kept track).

And yes, student loan forgiveness for all medical staff working in the NHS is a no-brainer.



Unless there's some other reason you can't get a second student loan, you can actually get a second undergrad student loan for some subjects, and medicine is one of them.

I have looked into it and I couldn't get one from Student Loans because I had one before. Other loans are available obvs but the terms are different than SLC and interest rates higher.

Now I think about it I may have failed the application because my loan from years ago ended by being written off (25-year limit). Still, those were the rules and I didn't write them. I'll check again anyway.
 
I have looked into it and I couldn't get one from Student Loans because I had one before. Other loans are available obvs but the terms are different than SLC and interest rates higher.

Now I think about it I may have failed the application because my loan from years ago ended by being written off (25-year limit). Still, I'll check again.

In principle it seems to be that you'd be eligible even though the previous loan was written off. It's worth looking into again, anyway.

 
Why isn’t Edie objecting to their workload? It’s dangerous for Edie and those requiring Edie’s care. That Edie expresses this alongside an objection to industrial action leads me to think that Edie agrees with regressive working practices. It isn’t for me to speculate on Edie’s motivations.
To clarify:
I opt out of EWTD- like almost all medics.
I work a standard week of 48 hours.
I then work 6 ‘additional hours’.

On top of that I pick up non-residential on call locums. This means I’m at home, but get called for advice or get called in to see a child if it’s complex and either the more junior doctors need help or another specialty needs my help.
On an average 16 hour weeknight on call I work four hours (in hospital or on my computer)- the rest I’m on standby which includes sleep. But that sleep is punctuated by telephone calls to some degree. Obviously I can’t drink, have to be within an hour of A&E.

I do it because: a) money (you don’t get paid as much for a non-residential as a residential on call obvs, but you get to be at home for most of it!); and b) cos the rota coordinator rings me up on my personal number and begs me.

I do all my locums on my ‘usual’ rota cos there’s massive rota gaps (ie there wouldn’t be a senior registrar working otherwise). They’re desperate for me- I could literally locum around the clock if I wanted to.

The only ‘rule’ is I need five uninterrupted hours rest a night.
 
To clarify:
I opt out of EWTD- like almost all medics.
I work a standard week of 48 hours.
I then work 6 ‘additional hours’.

On top of that I pick up non-residential on call locums. This means I’m at home, but get called for advice or get called in to see a child if it’s complex and either the more junior doctors need help or another specialty needs my help.
On an average 16 hour weeknight on call I work four hours (in hospital or on my computer)- the rest I’m on standby which includes sleep. But that sleep is punctuated by telephone calls to some degree. Obviously I can’t drink, have to be within an hour of A&E.

I do it because: a) money (you don’t get paid as much for a non-residential as a residential on call obvs, but you get to be at home for most of it!); and b) cos the rota coordinator rings me up on my personal number and begs me.

I do all my locums on my ‘usual’ rota cos there’s massive rota gaps (ie there wouldn’t be a senior registrar working otherwise). They’re desperate for me- I could literally locum around the clock if I wanted to.

The only ‘rule’ is I need five uninterrupted hours rest a night.
I’m not attacking you mate. I hope you are recompensed accordingly for extra hours though and you’re not working yourself into an early grave.
 
She thinks consultants shouldn’t be striking. On this very thread. Have you even read it?
I answered the question you asked about why she wasn't objecting to her workload. I don't know why you've suddenly decided I'm not adhering to the subject of the thread when I responded to that very question in my first post.
 
I answered the question you asked about why she wasn't objecting to her workload. I don't know why you've suddenly decided I'm not adhering to the subject of the thread when I responded to that very question in my first post.
Perhaps Edie could answer the question instead of you then?
 
Working 90 hours looks like an individual solution to a systemic problem, while suggesting that an alternative, collective action, is wrong. If someone benefits financially from the former, it's not surprising that someone else might question that is it?

I have the impression that it's the timing of this particular IA being around the only two bank holidays we have in succession that Edie has a problem with, and TBH I can see that. That doesn't seem well thought out.
 
Working 90 hours looks like an individual solution to a systemic problem, while suggesting that an alternative, collective action, is wrong. If someone benefits financially from the former, it's not surprising that someone else might question that is it?
It might come as a surprise but the standard trade union position is for headcount, not overtime. That Edie engages heavily in one but isn’t too keen on the other does raise questions that aren’t merely systemic.
 
I have the impression that it's the timing of this particular IA being around the only two bank holidays we have in succession that Edie has a problem with, and TBH I can see that. That doesn't seem well thought out.

Everyone's ability to think is compromised after working a certain amount of hours, perhaps over 48, perhaps a lot less than that.
 
It might come as a surprise but the standard trade union position is for headcount, not overtime. That Edie engages heavily in one but isn’t too keen on the other does raise questions that aren’t merely systemic.

Working in the nhs feels like a kind of coercive control, if you don't work extra hours for no pay to fill all the gaps left by unfilled posts then people might die.
 
I don't think anyone should ever earn above about 60k.

I have solidarity with all workers up until about this point. I also think we need solidarity to ensure that excessively high wages come down.

Fuck living in a society with huge inequality.
 
So £2,430 for a 90 hr week?
So… on top of my 48hrs…

One 16 hour rota’d shift- that’s contractual- plus 1 in four weekends. This is factored in to my pay.

Wouldn’t be unusual for me to do two locums on top:
If I do week day night of 16 hrs = 16 hours
Plus maybe a 24 hour weekend day = 24 hours

Which is 40 hours locum x £27 = £1080. Take 60% of that for net is £648 (on top of my monthly take home).

I sometimes do two week day nights, and often do 48 hour on call over the weekend, so can occasionally earn double that locum net take home. But when I say you feel like you’ve never stopped working 😬 So I balance it out. Some weeks (very rarely) I don’t do any locums.
 
I have the impression that it's the timing of this particular IA being around the only two bank holidays we have in succession that Edie has a problem with, and TBH I can see that. That doesn't seem well thought out.
It’s an absolutely massive part of why I’m not okay with it. Massive. It’s not in my view “safe”, and even if you argue it’s “safe” it’s going to fuck over sooo many patients. People who have been waiting months or years for surgery or hospital appointments. Real people- your friends and families and colleagues.

It might come as a surprise but the standard trade union position is for headcount, not overtime. That Edie engages heavily in one but isn’t too keen on the other does raise questions that aren’t merely systemic.
Given a choice between a fully staffed rota or opportunity for locum money I’d take the fully staffed rota EVERY time. I don’t think there would be a doctor who said otherwise. You have no idea how stressful it is working an underfilled rota- which is shorthand for saying doing the job of two (or more) doctors. It makes you wanna cry.
 
It’s an absolutely massive part of why I’m not okay with it. Massive. It’s not in my view “safe”, and even if you argue it’s “safe” it’s going to fuck over sooo many patients. People who have been waiting months or years for surgery or hospital appointments. Real people- your friends and families and colleagues.

Given a choice between a fully staffed rota or opportunity for locum money I’d take the fully staffed rota EVERY time. I don’t think there would be a doctor who said otherwise. You have no idea how stressful it is working an underfilled rota- which is shorthand for saying doing the job of two (or more) doctors. It makes you wanna cry.

I don't think anyone doubts that you'd choose a fully staffed rota over money Edie but the rota is not actually your responsibility.
 
Based on £12 an hour real living wage, for a workable 35 hour week, would give a guaranteed £22,000 income safety net.

Put in a maximum 6 times differential across the salary spectrum and the would limit earnings to £132,000.

I suspect most people could get by quite comfortably on that.

I also know it's not going to happen. I'm just making a point about the inequality of income distribution.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice
 
Working in the nhs feels like a kind of coercive control, if you don't work extra hours for no pay to fill all the gaps left by unfilled posts then people might die.
That's basically how the NHS and emergency services* keep going.


(*and of course those parts of the NHS that are also emergency services).
 
I don't think anyone should ever earn above about 60k.

I have solidarity with all workers up until about this point. I also think we need solidarity to ensure that excessively high wages come down.

Fuck living in a society with huge inequality.
'But if you pay doctors (who need 10 years training) the same as decorators (who need about a year) then doctors stay at home and paint their own houses....' I think the Swedish actually found that out...


People making life and death decisions: Train drivers, doctors etc should be rewarded for that, otherwise why take the risk? Not of course than most people earning over 60K at the moment are doing this...
 
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Edie I really think you have a retro idea of what a good salary is, based somewhere in the 90s or something. I'm also guessing that you bought a house a while ago. In most 'professional' jobs now 50k would be a very low salary to be aiming for, what with general inflation and of course house price inflation. In much of England now you couldn't buy a good family house on a salary of 50k. If two people in a couple earned that they could buy quite a small house in outer London, but why should salaries be set at levels where only couples can buy?

Of course many people are earning peanuts and struggling to eat etc. That's a matter of policy by the government. It doesn't help anyone to keep salaries down elsewhere, except at the very top end of the salary spectrum - but that top end is mostly not occupied by consultants, it's occupied by parasites who work in finance, management consulting etc, and lucky buggers whose hobby of coding suddenly became in high demand (most of the high earners on here I suspect). So lots of essentially worthless jobs now pay way more than being a doctor, but the comparison you want to make is with what nurses get paid? Anyway, it should be a no-brainer to say that in useful jobs everyone's salary should be going up or at least keeping pace with inflation. The only time I'd question the need for raises is in those parasitic jobs where people are getting £100k+ a year for fleecing people.
 
Edie I really think you have a retro idea of what a good salary is, based somewhere in the 90s or something. I'm also guessing that you bought a house a while ago. In most 'professional' jobs now 50k would be a very low salary to be aiming for, what with general inflation and of course house price inflation. In much of England now you couldn't buy a good family house on a salary of 50k. If two people in a couple earned that they could buy quite a small house in outer London, but why should salaries be set at levels where only couples can buy?

Of course many people are earning peanuts and struggling to eat etc. That's a matter of policy by the government. It doesn't help anyone to keep salaries down elsewhere, except at the very top end of the salary spectrum - but that top end is mostly not occupied by consultants, it's occupied by parasites who work in finance, management consulting etc, and lucky buggers whose hobby of coding suddenly became in high demand (most of the high earners on here I suspect). So lots of essentially worthless jobs now pay way more than being a doctor, but the comparison you want to make is with what nurses get paid? Anyway, it should be a no-brainer to say that in useful jobs everyone's salary should be going up or at least keeping pace with inflation. The only time I'd question the need for raises is in those parasitic jobs where people are getting £100k+ a year for fleecing people.
I think you’re right on all counts tbh.
 
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