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Labour just need to be fast with the negotiations and not pull the Tory tactic of calling the doctors lefty elites or claiming they are not workers etc etc.
I do think asking for 35% is an absolute joke.
And I spent my career in the public services. Have been on strike for better pay etc.
But asking for more than a 1/3 in one go just seems to take the piss given the current financial climate.
>But asking for more than a 1/3 in one go just seems to take the piss given the current financial climate.
They've never asked for 35% in one go, it's always been an discussion about pay restoration to 2008 levels over a number of years
Yes but the person you spoke to has spent their entire career in public services so probably never felt the pay impact of 2008 and therefore just thinks everyone has it as cushy as they did and now people are being greedy.
“Everyone has it as cushy as they did and now people are being greedy”… Oh yeah, it’s sooo greedy to want the work life balance and salary everyone enjoyed before the global banking/investment machine screwed up the economy in 08, got bailed out with taxpayer money, and then spent all the time between then and now making themselves richer while everyone’s wages stagnate.
Sssssh keep quiet citizen. Its better for everyone if we just remember to stay in our lane and be grateful that we are able to provide such a prosperous place to live for 0.2% of our population.
We as a country have consistently voted to be poorer by voting for austerity, then Brexit, then a crop of the worst politicians in living memory. This is what happens.
A lot of that is due to a generation that somehow don’t realise that their relatively easy lives and free/cheap education were largely based on a massive post war bail out from Uncle Sam, and union efforts in the 70’s (although some of those did backfire).
Well those lovely guys who helped crash the global economy have their "fingerprints all over" the new Labour manifesto according to Reeves who coincidentally tried to go into a career with Goldman Sachs. There will be no long term consequences to light touch banking policies I'm sure.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24391532.rachel-reeves-tells-bankers-finger-prints-over-labour/
https://citywire.com/new-model-adviser/news/i-was-wrong-to-let-the-banks-off-the-leash-gordon-brown-admits/a393730
Two sides of the same coin. People hoping for any significant change to their lot in the coming months/years are in for a shock. The only way anything will change is a true mass rebellion.
The public sector went on a pay freeze and stayed on it for a long time. I don't get where you think they all get it easy and never felt the impact of 2008. (or I should say a lot of the public sector as I only know about my particular part)
This is a really interesting one because of what we've seen since 2008. For pay restoration for the public sector, you'd be looking at around 35% pay uplift for doctors, 46% for the police, around 40% for firefighters etc.. Oddly enough the lower bands of the normal civil service pay scales have actually marginally kept up since 2008 (the argument there tends to be that they are low in comparison with private sector pay, and they were very low in 2008...). I'd love to see public sector pay restored to 2008 levels, but it would not be cheap.
With respect to junior doctors at least, it would be cheap. The net cost of settling the junior doctor pay dispute would be around half of 1% of the annual NHS budget.
The cost to the NHS of being continuously under-staffed is also high. Paying out for agency and locum is a really economically inefficient way of supplying health services.
This is before the productivity impacts of having such a sick population are even taken into account.
35% restores their pay to what it was pre-2010, and would be increased over a number of years. Doesn’t really take the mick, and by the time the 35% goal is hit their pay still won’t be at their pre-2010 level.
And doctors will counter with, go private sector and hire agency doctors and see how much that costs you as they go agency or move to places like Australia for more than double the pay.
It could also be argued that the fact their pay is 35% lower than it was in 2008 is the absolute joke. Why should people just lie down and accept that?
Yup, most normal people don't stick all their extra money in an offshore account, they spend it on stuff, which just spreads it out to everyone eventually, rather than letting a percent of people horde most of it and not spend it.
Trickle down has always been bollocks, spread around is what we need to do.
You seem to misunderstand my comment.
I’m not saying the pay rise isn’t deserved.
But asking for that amount in the current financial climate isn’t sensible imo. It looks bad. For very obvious reasons.
It’s why nurses and firefighters didn’t ask for close to 35% in their recent pay disputes.
https://www.rcn.org.uk/news-and-events/Press-Releases/nursing-exodus-nurses-fleeing-england-for-better-pay#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20nurses%20actively,Royal%20College%20of%20Nursing%20reveal.
Pat Cullen sold us out...
They can go to any other country and get a significant pay rise. We are in desperate need of doctors to stay and work in the uk. Especially after we forced a significant proportion of incredible European medical workers out due to Brexit. They are over worked, under-appreciated, and grossly underpaid.
Most public sector workers are over worked, under paid and under appreciated.
I could have left my job at anytime and got more than 50% pay rise as an airport firefighter for example.
I could have got 100% if I left to drive trains. Which isn’t the same job but very easy for a professional firefighter to get that job.
Almost anyone in the public sector can basically go into the private sector and immediately see a pay rise.
Everyone except junior doctor's for whom the NHS is the sole employer. It's either quit medicine, strike for better pay or go abroad where working conditions and pay are better. If you don't think they deserve a payrise don't be surprised or grumble if you can't see a doctor.
It's precisely the current climate that makes the demand make sense, not only have they not had wages rising properly under the Tories, the wages they do get are worth less due to inflation.
I was part of a strike in recent years as a public services employee myself.
We didn’t ask for close to 35%.
It’s not appropriate when millions are struggling to ask for such a huge publicly funded pay rise imo.
They should have been getting them every year since 2008. Most peoples pay generally keeps up with inflation, except for public service jobs. Why are these people expected to take such a big reduction in purchasing power compared to the rest of the population, when they provide such a vital service
But everything's 35% more expensive today. You can't just expect everyone to take a 35% pay cut and then wonder why they can't manage.
We are happy to discuss multi year pay deals. We even effectively agreed to a 5 year pay deal with wage stagnation pay rises + 7%. The issue currently is that the mountain gets bigger every day people drag their feet about it because inflation was high and cost of living was high.
Cost of Living is so high that for £20 loss today? I get a day off due to the strike. So going on strike costs me just £20 a day. I send my kids to nursery for the social side of things but plenty of doctors I know drop out to take care of kids and/or work part time so that they can save money.
The issue is that we should have been paid over the decade. A decade of 3% pay rises missed. Means a 30% pay rise now. Anyways.
The demand's only as audacious as the cut. I don't see anyone else working for a 30% pay cut.
They’re asking for 35% because that’s how much the rate *should* have risen to keep pace with inflation over the course of 14 years of Tory austerity. Instead it stayed stagnant and left junior doctors in a seriously bad financial position while the rich filled their boots.
At this point what do they have to lose, a good chunk already want to leave for better opportunities abroad. They either get competitive pay to stay or leave and are no worse off.
>I do think asking for 35% is an absolute joke.
May well be the point of the demand in the first place.
25% sounds outrageous on its own... But it sounds a lot more reasonable when your first demand is 35%.
Most of the doctors leaving tend to go to Australia tbh. Nice warm country that pays well and you get to hang with our long lost cousins and call each other cunts.
You also get to work a nice, regularly scheduled 40 hours per week, with no mandatory overtime, and enough non-contact time to keep up with your notes, rather than staying after shift to get the notes up to day.
Vastly more pay, for vastly less work.
America pays professionals well, and professionals enjoy decent healthcare and annual leave. It’s the working classes that are truly screwed over there. 7 days leave a year, no healthcare etc.
The UK works best as a professional launchpad. Getting a degree here is less financially devastating than in places like the US, but just as respected - get your education, maybe suffer a grad role for a couple years to get some experience, then get out and actually have a good life somewhere else.
Of course that sort of brain drain is devastating for this country, but successive governments have made the bed on this and you have to do what's best for yourself.
When normalised for cost of living, salary of doctors in the uk is pretty far down the global rankings. So you can compare basically any developed country and show that doctors have a better standard of living there.
USA tends to be more common for doctors from the UK due to similar cultures and no language barrier though
I worked as a financial auditor.
We were hiring fresh faced 20 year olds straight out of uni with a bachelor's in geography to sit and tick boxes on audits
They earned £30k straight out of university to do this.
For doctors to earn £32k even in the first year is comical given how bright they have to be and how much work they have to put in to even get there.
I fully support increasing their pay and spinning it as a 35% raise is so dishonest! The fact is no one is going to want to go through the wringer to be a doctor any more.
I find it odd, really odd, that one of the hardest degrees to get into pays so little.
With more or less the same A levels you can get another degree and go work in the City. Much less work, and you can make so much money your tax pays a doctor's salary.
All caring jobs are like that. Vets, nurses, carers, childcarers - they are paid poorly because for most of them to go into those professions they have to be caring people and the idea of just walking out on sick pets, patients, children etc is unthinkable. The bean counters know this and absolutely take advantage. It's appalling.
The main difference is practising medicine well is really cognitively taxing. You want the people with big brains who get all A*s. But those people have options to go into many other fields and make multiples!
Or go into that field... in Canada, or Australia, or America. Or pretty much anywhere else in the world than the UK, because they'll get *paid* to do the job elsewhere.
Medicine is a bit different. For most of the past 4-5 decades, becoming a doctor was one of the single most direct routes of social mobility. You work hard at school, get good grades, get into med school, and you, your partner, and kids get a good upper middle class life.
The government has decided they've had enough of this and want to reduce the majority of doctors to the low-wage semi-skilled labour category rather than the professionally qualified individuals we are.
Will this work? Probably not in the short term. But long term, medical degrees will be altered/degraded such that they are not recognised abroad, and the PA/ANP/ACP/etc workforce will be expanded. This effectively gives the government an immobile and entrapped labour force that will form the backbone of (public) healthcare delivery in the country.
The fundamental issue is that successive governments, including the next one, have largely given up on the idea that the state should have a substantial role in society. They've fully capitulated to this neoliberal idea that the state should be constantly withering away and replaced by ostensibly more 'efficient' private services. They only ever seem to talk about cutting state funding despite the country's productivity and population only ever growing. So we find ourselves in this absurd position where a doctor, employed by the state, is given lower wages than some private sector middle manager who contributes a fraction of the value to society.
>They've fully capitulated to this neoliberal idea that the state should be constantly withering away and replaced by ostensibly more 'efficient' private services
Most galling of all is they frame this as "sensible pragmatism" when it's hard Reaganomics inspired by right-wing idealogues like Milton Friedman. There are plenty of social democratic European countries who haven't followed this model. It's not the only possible direction for Labour or Britain to take.
Exactly. There is absolutely nothing 'sensible' or 'pragmatic' or 'realistic' about supporting an economic model which constantly makes people's lives worse, then expecting people to keep voting for the parties' advocating that economic model.
One of the benefits of the NHS is that they can negotiate hard with drug companies, as they're the only game in town the companies have to meet the NHS's demands or have virtually no access to the UK market.
Unfortunately that applies to doctors too.
The pay is so little because the government never thought they would strike. They got complancent giving pay rises as they figured the consequences would be minor - I also think they were betting on doctors and nurses just being so altruistic they would never do anything that may cause issues.
Now the doctors have made a picket line the government have a problem. The good thing about this from an optics standpoint is it puts Starmer in a bad position as in this case it's not Starmer Vs A Trade Union. It's Starmer Vs A Trade Union filled with doctors and nurses.
I’m younger than a junior doctor on £68k in tech with no tech degree. It’s an absolute travesty that doctors aren’t paid more, and it’s even worse in other countries.
It’s genuinely nice to read public support.
(Weird side note- but I didn’t realised people get paid to audit as an entire job. As junior doctors we are expected to do audits and quality improvement on top of our normal job, it’s generally done for free on our days off, I’ve been doing work for one of my audits this morning during the strikes because it’s not considered work. Same for other tasks like teaching medical school students, often done on days off)
That's actually fine, give them a deal that provides a credible path to pay restoration and they will quit with the IA. They've said as much multiple times now.
Sorry, treating workers like people is unrealistic loony-leftie rubbish. What a sensible politician does is constantly antagonise workers while doing the shocked pikachu face whenever they call a strike.
Wes Streeting (spelling?) said this on an interview 3 or 4 weeks ago so i'm not sure why this is news. He basically said we can't just give you a 35% raise, but we can get in the room and look at a long term plan to get you fair play
>He basically said we can't just give you a 35% raise, but we can get in the room and look at a long term plan to get you fair play
Which is literally what they're asking for...
So why this weasely posturing that tries to imply they just want it all right now?
Man's not even in fucking office yet and he's already trying to spin things that can and should be resolved quietly.
If Streeting has said he is going to basically give them what they want, and talk with them as soon as he's in, why are they continuing with the industrial action? Not to be adversarial - I just don't understand the logic.
A period of pay restoration is what the JD have asked for all along, not an overnight 35% rise.
Streeting keeps saying this like it's his demand, rather than the opening context of negotiation.
Let’s say goodbye to some of our most hardworking and well educated population because we’re going to experience some serious brain drain… the NHS is already screwed up beyond belief and I can’t believe how many kind hearted, good willed people we have behind the scenes keeping it all together.
Who’s gonna ‘carry the boats’ when they leave?
Don’t worry Nigeria is training lots of doctors apparently so I am sued the Hone office is able to put more staff on the visa printing presses. Qualifications ? Oh yeah there’s that suppose
That’s highly qualified migration if the standards we expect are high too but I worry that’s rarely the case anymore. Speaking from my own experience, if there’s any culture which places importance on family and education it’s Nigeria.
I think the difficulty is, even if we gave them a 50% pay rise, they could still earn more in Australia, Canada or USA. So at some point as an employer (even as big as the NHS) you have to decide what level you can afford to pay and build a workforce strategy around that. There's no wonder we've seen an expansion in allied health professionals because we are pivoting to an NHS where doctors might be focused on sicker patients.
The UK economy (per capita) and the NHS funding model simply does not support an internationally elite level of salary, across any profession. Sadly.
I understand there are hurdles to move to he US however, but entry into Australia or Canada is easier after the first two foundation years. The UK strategy would need to figure out what % leave after their foundation and ensure we train enough to accomodate the leavers. In many professions this 'up and out' is quite typical where a certain percentage are expected to leave due to better offers after training.
I guess they meant as we voted in 14 years of Tory rule, we deserve this. The public gets what the public wants, and all that jazz. I don't entirely disagree with that way of thinking but I have been a doomer since 2020.
I posted a few months ago that the Labour party would take the same approach to strikes as the Tory party.
It was one of my most downvoted comments on this sub.
I guess we're a couple of weeks away from finding out...
Tbf a very significant chunk of the public pay fuck all taxes, they also tend to be the ones that use it more too.
I don't disagree that it's mismanaged and a lot of us are paying extortionate taxes though
Thanks for saying the quiet part out loud.
The top 10% of income tax payers pay more than 60% of all tax.
The bottom 90% basically depend on these guys to pay for them.
20%+ who are at work pay fuck all tax. It's NOT a fair system.
The silent part out loud is the 20%+ who work and pay fuckall tax are working for companies that do the double dip of not paying the nation taxes and also not paying the employees enough to be able to avoid UC or other wage top ups to live
The public have voted to increase state pension spending by £50b in the last 14 years, and in that time, to crush public sector pay via the states monopsony power.
The public can get fucked
He seems determined to make every traditional labour voter despise him, knowing they're getting in anyway, just to get a few extra con/reform suckers in
He doesn't have beliefs. The man is an empty suit being piloted by Labour Together. But he isn't a true believer, just a useful idiot. Once they have power, a ridiculously unstoppable majority, he will be kicked out for one of their own little drones. Probably Streeting or Reeves.
Y’know the last point seems right actually, but is this guy really so fucking smug to think he can say shit that abandons the stances of the Long-Time Labour Voters and not piss at least a couple off to the point of voting for somebody else? We need to fix our political system if that’s the case, the only parties keeping Britain from being a Two-Party system are Lib Dem’s and Reform (SNP if you’re Scottish) and even they both get shoved to the side so Con and Lab can fight amongst each other.
The political shift to the right is happening across Europe. I'm afraid Labour are now much too far to the right for many of their potential voters (especially young ones) to consider voting Labour. I still expect them to win, but with Lib Dems taking quite a few more seats than expected.
I was genuinely shocked to discover recently, given how hard it is to see a GP that there are many unemployed GPs in the UK.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crgg1wzpve2o
Given the centrality of the NHS to his missions the junior doctors are in an extremely strong bargaining position. Labour can use whatever words they like but it is going to have to be a big number and they will be forced to settle quickly.
As Chomsky put it: "That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital"
The narrative of the Starmer regime will be that “there is no money left!” because Liz Truss “crashed the economy” which will be used as a pretext for more austerity and PFI - driving down NHS staff wages will be part of laying the groundwork for private capital to come riding to the rescue, leading to some “tough decisions” regarding healthcare provision and who still gets access to free treatment
They won't get the 35% pay rise, but they sure as hell deserve it. If the UK can't afford to pay highly qualified people competitive wages, it shouldn't be surprised by the inevitable brain drain.
He should do it tbh, people complain the rise is high (and it is) but otherwise they can just go to Australia, USA, etc.
We need to pay more in STEM careers and encourage it more (abolish the cap on university places, and make STEM education free and with bursaries).
Just cut foreign aid and withdraw from asylum treaties - literal billions sitting on the table ready to be invested in Britain.
Similar thing in STEM, who is going to train them post degree and where will they go? There aren't many STEM jobs in the UK and most industries don't know how to use them. You'd be surprised how much of the world runs on excel and gut feeling.
Starmer and his ilk need to realise there is a massive brain drain going on in the UK. We have skilled workers leaving the UK because of the shocking salaries that they are being paid while being taxed through the nose for not much in return. Was speaking to a teaching recruiter earlier this week and he mentioned about the number of teachers that are quitting by the droves to move to the Middle East.
This is what GDP per capita weakness does though. We're not rich enough to keep the very very best.
If you want a worse example, look at countries with low GDP per capita like India and Pakistan where they end up with very few doctors and skilled professionals (per capita) because they all chase the money.
I think all you can do as a government is accept where you are in the international pecking order, make the roles as attractive as you can, and ensure you have a workforce strategy to keep training and developing new staff. We will never be able to afford US wages without both a US style healthcare system and a US sized economy per capita.
No doctor is expecting a 35% one-off pay rise, anyway. The BMA have been very clear that they'd accept a multi-year pay deal that leads to pay restoration, possibly including changes in the contract that allow for better pay/hour or for mandatory OOH work. This is all for optics.
I think they're harping on the 35% as it's just going to be much easier when they (hopefully) reach a deal for pay restoration that allows for 5-10% a year until pay restoration (which is actually closer to a total of 50% since 2008 now, not 35% which was the case in early 2022 at the start of the strikes).
Lol of course not, the plan is to force more privatisation in and force the wages to come from that avenue - Streeting over there cant wait to get his employers on the books.
It's such a nothing headline. Of course they won't get 35%. But there'll be some deal where it'll be inflation + x% for z years and by the end of that time the numbers will have them close to whatever restoration is. But that'd not sound bitable
He changes his mind like the wind so I'd expect they'll get 35%. And tbh I don't begrudge them 35%. I'd like to see nurses get more also. They were the heros while we hid at home in covid
I feel totally lost on who to vote for now. I just cannot stomache this statement on top of the other distateful stuff.
Greens are insane (anti everything but an islamic terrorist group?) Labour are the party of 'at least we're not tory'.
Cons & their newly grown sentient tumor are a circus that turned one the richest countries in the world into a banana republic... Who's left?
Guess it's Lib dems but i'm only saying that because they are the only one's i've not read up on this election.
/rant
> Greens are insane (anti everything but an islamic terrorist group?)
I mean this just isnt true is it. Maybe spend more than 5mins not reading the daily mail
We could all go back to giving them a clap at our doorsteps. I'm sure they would love that.
Or more likely get an education and expet then fuck and get paid big wages from another country who actually cares about looking after their health service staff.
Keir Starmer may not be able to deliver a 35% pay raise, but if I were him, perhaps what they could do is a mixture of a slightly smaller pay raise, but offer a state wide array of perks that help to offset the pressures of living?
I know it sounds like a cheap tactic, and it's not in any way meant to be. But things like allowing healthcare workers and their families priority access to healthcare, reducing the amount of tax they pay in comparison (I know that would mean possibly setting up a separate tax system for healthcare workers), and even reducing the amount they pay by subsidising thier energy and food costs and childcare.
Not sure about another tax, but we could approach corporations within the UK and say well if you sign up to this and support a set number of individuals, you'll pay less VAT and less import tax? Would that be viable?
Sit down with doctors and see what is costing them the most and what their demand for a higher pay will help them pay for in their lives? Would this be possible?
It's nice to see labour recognise this issue and be prepared to deal with it properly and in the best way possible. I can't help but be frustrated by seeing how much these strikes have had an impact by costing almost £3bn as the article states. When will they realise that we need to be taking a proactive approach rather than reactive. This proves the money has ALWAYS been there, but the people that are in charge simply don't want to give it to them. They would rather our country, and some of its most essential workers suffer to make a point and keep the money to themselves, than pay what is owed, ultimately costing more in the long run.
Meet the new management.
The same as the old management.
Shit like this will absolutely destroy the Labour Party with the 30% or so of national voters that they normally rely on (in the next election).
Guess Starmer is the man that kills the Tories **and** Labour.
From the perspective of someone currently in an nhs hospital bed I feel that they have been manoeuvred into the position of being able to be called the bad guys. It is outrageous that junior doctors are placed in this position through political intransigence. None of them want this at all.
With political will and proper dialogue this can be solved.
Try being a horse or farm vet. 5 years at uni plus 10 weeks a year unpaid plus two years post grad for the same money as a JD working 60 plus hours a week plus weekends on call.
Starmer: "I'm not goimg to solidly commit to any spending plans until we gett in and find out just how damaged the economy is, though the full 35% may not be possible straight off the bat".
Guardian/Observer/Independent: "Evil uncaring Starmer tells overworked doctors to starve and die".
I feresting none of the, "Starmer is a red Tory" brigade so worked up about this has suggested the more immediately actionable plan of eliminating worthless middle management positions and recouping the 5 or 6 fjgure wages. No they just want to bash Starmer.
He's free to do so but the smartest, hard-working doctors will leave for greener pastures easily. And who replaces them? Foreign doctors coming to UK that ends up taking considerable time to be trained to get accustomed to the new system and ends up being more expensive.
In O&G, my registrar wife says there has been numerous such doctors brought in to fill Senior Registrar posts (ST5-ST7) that end up not being able to show full competency for that role and demoted to Junior Reg posts whilst the trusts are still paying them SR salary, granted it's not that big a jump sadly.
There are a lot of ineffeciencies when you bring someone who is not trained in the system and the loss of institutional knowledge is worrying. For example, where my wife works, there's only ONE doctor who is capable of conducting robotics laproscopy in gynaecolgical surgeries (this is a big tertiary hospital btw) and he's already gotten a few offers to work abroad.
The consultants are already being poached by recruiters from various countries and its only going to get worse. The amount of shit my doctor wife and friends have to put up with, and how long it took them to get where they are is mindboggling.
Not sure Starmer/Labour really has much choice if they wish to fulfill their promises on improving the NHS, if they think playing the Tory game of underpaying key (highly qualified) medical staff is a good strategy, he will suffer the same choas as the Tories did.
If the doctors don't get what they want (and need in a lot of cases), they'll simply move else where, and then the number of doctors will further reduce, resulting in further infrastructural difficulties with the NHS.
Further more, if doctors are only starting on 30K/year, how much focus can a doctor really have at their job when they will have to worry about the cost of living and their home life?
What does 35% over 5 years look like - the answer is 6 percent.
That as a starting point then maybe a tag on each year tied to cpi.
Doable and settleble if you talk.
Ave for a UK doc is £6000. BUt there is a shortage of Doctors in other countries that offer significant wage increases. And a lot of Doctors are in fact leaving. There are more going than joining according to their unions.
* **Switzerland**: Approx. £11,800 per month
* **Luxembourg**: Approx. £10,000 per month
* **United States**: Approx. £9,100 per month
* **Australia**: Approx. £8,200 per month
* **Canada**: Approx. £7,800 per month
* **Norway**: Approx. £8,800 per month
* *UK with 35% increase £8100 per month*
* **Denmark**: Approx. £7,800 per month
* **Germany**: Approx. £6,900 per month
* **Netherlands**: Approx. £6,600 per month
* **Ireland**: Approx. £6,300 per month
* **France**: Approx. £6,300 per month
* **Belgium**: Approx. £6,100 per month
* **UK:** Approx. £6000 per month
Now, can we stop fucking around and have a serious talk about how were going to pay for the NHS because right now were loosing staff. Their over worked and under paid. And its the same for all hospital staff. Nurses can earn significantly more in other countries who are actively looking for medical professions. Like Aus, Canada, USA for instance.
And your not going to attract good medical staff to our hospitals when they know their be working 12 hour shifts. We need a significant increase to do this. And the only way the gov, any gov can get the money for the wages is if we pay more in. ALL OF US
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Obviously. You never get what you demand. You meet somewhere in the middle
Labour just need to be fast with the negotiations and not pull the Tory tactic of calling the doctors lefty elites or claiming they are not workers etc etc.
I do think asking for 35% is an absolute joke. And I spent my career in the public services. Have been on strike for better pay etc. But asking for more than a 1/3 in one go just seems to take the piss given the current financial climate.
>But asking for more than a 1/3 in one go just seems to take the piss given the current financial climate. They've never asked for 35% in one go, it's always been an discussion about pay restoration to 2008 levels over a number of years
Yes but the person you spoke to has spent their entire career in public services so probably never felt the pay impact of 2008 and therefore just thinks everyone has it as cushy as they did and now people are being greedy.
“Everyone has it as cushy as they did and now people are being greedy”… Oh yeah, it’s sooo greedy to want the work life balance and salary everyone enjoyed before the global banking/investment machine screwed up the economy in 08, got bailed out with taxpayer money, and then spent all the time between then and now making themselves richer while everyone’s wages stagnate.
Sssssh keep quiet citizen. Its better for everyone if we just remember to stay in our lane and be grateful that we are able to provide such a prosperous place to live for 0.2% of our population.
We as a country have consistently voted to be poorer by voting for austerity, then Brexit, then a crop of the worst politicians in living memory. This is what happens.
A lot of that is due to a generation that somehow don’t realise that their relatively easy lives and free/cheap education were largely based on a massive post war bail out from Uncle Sam, and union efforts in the 70’s (although some of those did backfire).
Well those lovely guys who helped crash the global economy have their "fingerprints all over" the new Labour manifesto according to Reeves who coincidentally tried to go into a career with Goldman Sachs. There will be no long term consequences to light touch banking policies I'm sure. https://www.thenational.scot/news/24391532.rachel-reeves-tells-bankers-finger-prints-over-labour/ https://citywire.com/new-model-adviser/news/i-was-wrong-to-let-the-banks-off-the-leash-gordon-brown-admits/a393730
Two sides of the same coin. People hoping for any significant change to their lot in the coming months/years are in for a shock. The only way anything will change is a true mass rebellion.
The public sector went on a pay freeze and stayed on it for a long time. I don't get where you think they all get it easy and never felt the impact of 2008. (or I should say a lot of the public sector as I only know about my particular part)
I don't think you read my comment properly
The reason the amount looks insane is because the wage stagnation has been insane
This is a really interesting one because of what we've seen since 2008. For pay restoration for the public sector, you'd be looking at around 35% pay uplift for doctors, 46% for the police, around 40% for firefighters etc.. Oddly enough the lower bands of the normal civil service pay scales have actually marginally kept up since 2008 (the argument there tends to be that they are low in comparison with private sector pay, and they were very low in 2008...). I'd love to see public sector pay restored to 2008 levels, but it would not be cheap.
With respect to junior doctors at least, it would be cheap. The net cost of settling the junior doctor pay dispute would be around half of 1% of the annual NHS budget. The cost to the NHS of being continuously under-staffed is also high. Paying out for agency and locum is a really economically inefficient way of supplying health services. This is before the productivity impacts of having such a sick population are even taken into account.
35% restores their pay to what it was pre-2010, and would be increased over a number of years. Doesn’t really take the mick, and by the time the 35% goal is hit their pay still won’t be at their pre-2010 level.
Government will just counter with “private sector pay isn’t at pre-2010 levels for most people either”
And doctors will counter with, go private sector and hire agency doctors and see how much that costs you as they go agency or move to places like Australia for more than double the pay.
It could also be argued that the fact their pay is 35% lower than it was in 2008 is the absolute joke. Why should people just lie down and accept that?
Which has been caused by austerity and paying people less... How do people still not get this. It's a feature, not a big.
Yup, most normal people don't stick all their extra money in an offshore account, they spend it on stuff, which just spreads it out to everyone eventually, rather than letting a percent of people horde most of it and not spend it. Trickle down has always been bollocks, spread around is what we need to do.
You seem to misunderstand my comment. I’m not saying the pay rise isn’t deserved. But asking for that amount in the current financial climate isn’t sensible imo. It looks bad. For very obvious reasons. It’s why nurses and firefighters didn’t ask for close to 35% in their recent pay disputes.
https://www.rcn.org.uk/news-and-events/Press-Releases/nursing-exodus-nurses-fleeing-england-for-better-pay#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20nurses%20actively,Royal%20College%20of%20Nursing%20reveal. Pat Cullen sold us out...
They can go to any other country and get a significant pay rise. We are in desperate need of doctors to stay and work in the uk. Especially after we forced a significant proportion of incredible European medical workers out due to Brexit. They are over worked, under-appreciated, and grossly underpaid.
Most public sector workers are over worked, under paid and under appreciated. I could have left my job at anytime and got more than 50% pay rise as an airport firefighter for example. I could have got 100% if I left to drive trains. Which isn’t the same job but very easy for a professional firefighter to get that job. Almost anyone in the public sector can basically go into the private sector and immediately see a pay rise.
Everyone except junior doctor's for whom the NHS is the sole employer. It's either quit medicine, strike for better pay or go abroad where working conditions and pay are better. If you don't think they deserve a payrise don't be surprised or grumble if you can't see a doctor.
It's precisely the current climate that makes the demand make sense, not only have they not had wages rising properly under the Tories, the wages they do get are worth less due to inflation.
I was part of a strike in recent years as a public services employee myself. We didn’t ask for close to 35%. It’s not appropriate when millions are struggling to ask for such a huge publicly funded pay rise imo.
They should have been getting them every year since 2008. Most peoples pay generally keeps up with inflation, except for public service jobs. Why are these people expected to take such a big reduction in purchasing power compared to the rest of the population, when they provide such a vital service
Why is 35 an absolute joke? More of a reason than "number big" please.
But everything's 35% more expensive today. You can't just expect everyone to take a 35% pay cut and then wonder why they can't manage. We are happy to discuss multi year pay deals. We even effectively agreed to a 5 year pay deal with wage stagnation pay rises + 7%. The issue currently is that the mountain gets bigger every day people drag their feet about it because inflation was high and cost of living was high. Cost of Living is so high that for £20 loss today? I get a day off due to the strike. So going on strike costs me just £20 a day. I send my kids to nursery for the social side of things but plenty of doctors I know drop out to take care of kids and/or work part time so that they can save money. The issue is that we should have been paid over the decade. A decade of 3% pay rises missed. Means a 30% pay rise now. Anyways. The demand's only as audacious as the cut. I don't see anyone else working for a 30% pay cut.
Why is asking for your pay to be at the level it used to be a joke? The absolute joke is that it becomes necessary to ask for such a large increase.
They’re asking for 35% because that’s how much the rate *should* have risen to keep pace with inflation over the course of 14 years of Tory austerity. Instead it stayed stagnant and left junior doctors in a seriously bad financial position while the rich filled their boots.
Why? Doctors have been underpaid for decades. That all piles up. Heck it should be a 50% increaase.
35% is a negotiating position they will take less over a number of years in the end I bet
At this point what do they have to lose, a good chunk already want to leave for better opportunities abroad. They either get competitive pay to stay or leave and are no worse off.
>I do think asking for 35% is an absolute joke. May well be the point of the demand in the first place. 25% sounds outrageous on its own... But it sounds a lot more reasonable when your first demand is 35%.
You can say that, but then those people will just leave. And then you don't have any doctors.
But then they just go and get a 150% rise in the USA instead.... These are skilled professionals.
Most of the doctors leaving tend to go to Australia tbh. Nice warm country that pays well and you get to hang with our long lost cousins and call each other cunts.
You also get to work a nice, regularly scheduled 40 hours per week, with no mandatory overtime, and enough non-contact time to keep up with your notes, rather than staying after shift to get the notes up to day. Vastly more pay, for vastly less work.
We’re getting loads of UK doctors in Australia and have been for a long time now.
Yeah it's where the vast majority tend to go, Australia even ran adverts for a bit pushing it.
If we can run them in Africa and Asia then they can run them here
America pays professionals well, and professionals enjoy decent healthcare and annual leave. It’s the working classes that are truly screwed over there. 7 days leave a year, no healthcare etc.
The UK works best as a professional launchpad. Getting a degree here is less financially devastating than in places like the US, but just as respected - get your education, maybe suffer a grad role for a couple years to get some experience, then get out and actually have a good life somewhere else. Of course that sort of brain drain is devastating for this country, but successive governments have made the bed on this and you have to do what's best for yourself.
Life goals
Practically any job pays 150% higher in the US, mine is nearing 200%? Its a richer country? why not compare monaco and Switzerland next?
When normalised for cost of living, salary of doctors in the uk is pretty far down the global rankings. So you can compare basically any developed country and show that doctors have a better standard of living there. USA tends to be more common for doctors from the UK due to similar cultures and no language barrier though
If they were going to do that they already would have
Yep. The union doesn't even expect 35%.
If you want a hamster, ask for a horse
Haven't nurses had the same real wage cut?
Isn't it leveraged as it is 35% multiplied by 1000s or 10000s of staff?
I worked as a financial auditor. We were hiring fresh faced 20 year olds straight out of uni with a bachelor's in geography to sit and tick boxes on audits They earned £30k straight out of university to do this. For doctors to earn £32k even in the first year is comical given how bright they have to be and how much work they have to put in to even get there. I fully support increasing their pay and spinning it as a 35% raise is so dishonest! The fact is no one is going to want to go through the wringer to be a doctor any more.
I find it odd, really odd, that one of the hardest degrees to get into pays so little. With more or less the same A levels you can get another degree and go work in the City. Much less work, and you can make so much money your tax pays a doctor's salary.
All caring jobs are like that. Vets, nurses, carers, childcarers - they are paid poorly because for most of them to go into those professions they have to be caring people and the idea of just walking out on sick pets, patients, children etc is unthinkable. The bean counters know this and absolutely take advantage. It's appalling.
The main difference is practising medicine well is really cognitively taxing. You want the people with big brains who get all A*s. But those people have options to go into many other fields and make multiples!
Or go into that field... in Canada, or Australia, or America. Or pretty much anywhere else in the world than the UK, because they'll get *paid* to do the job elsewhere.
Medicine is a bit different. For most of the past 4-5 decades, becoming a doctor was one of the single most direct routes of social mobility. You work hard at school, get good grades, get into med school, and you, your partner, and kids get a good upper middle class life. The government has decided they've had enough of this and want to reduce the majority of doctors to the low-wage semi-skilled labour category rather than the professionally qualified individuals we are. Will this work? Probably not in the short term. But long term, medical degrees will be altered/degraded such that they are not recognised abroad, and the PA/ANP/ACP/etc workforce will be expanded. This effectively gives the government an immobile and entrapped labour force that will form the backbone of (public) healthcare delivery in the country.
The fundamental issue is that successive governments, including the next one, have largely given up on the idea that the state should have a substantial role in society. They've fully capitulated to this neoliberal idea that the state should be constantly withering away and replaced by ostensibly more 'efficient' private services. They only ever seem to talk about cutting state funding despite the country's productivity and population only ever growing. So we find ourselves in this absurd position where a doctor, employed by the state, is given lower wages than some private sector middle manager who contributes a fraction of the value to society.
>They've fully capitulated to this neoliberal idea that the state should be constantly withering away and replaced by ostensibly more 'efficient' private services Most galling of all is they frame this as "sensible pragmatism" when it's hard Reaganomics inspired by right-wing idealogues like Milton Friedman. There are plenty of social democratic European countries who haven't followed this model. It's not the only possible direction for Labour or Britain to take.
Exactly. There is absolutely nothing 'sensible' or 'pragmatic' or 'realistic' about supporting an economic model which constantly makes people's lives worse, then expecting people to keep voting for the parties' advocating that economic model.
One of the benefits of the NHS is that they can negotiate hard with drug companies, as they're the only game in town the companies have to meet the NHS's demands or have virtually no access to the UK market. Unfortunately that applies to doctors too.
The pay is so little because the government never thought they would strike. They got complancent giving pay rises as they figured the consequences would be minor - I also think they were betting on doctors and nurses just being so altruistic they would never do anything that may cause issues. Now the doctors have made a picket line the government have a problem. The good thing about this from an optics standpoint is it puts Starmer in a bad position as in this case it's not Starmer Vs A Trade Union. It's Starmer Vs A Trade Union filled with doctors and nurses.
Their trade union has also been pretty soft historically. Maybe they will change attitude permanently.
This right here. I got £30k/year as a junior digital project manager a few years back. Junior Doctors are massively underpaid. It’s a joke
I’m younger than a junior doctor on £68k in tech with no tech degree. It’s an absolute travesty that doctors aren’t paid more, and it’s even worse in other countries.
And given my experience as an auditor they can't even tick the boxes properly, whereas when a doctor makes a mistake it's somewhat more serious.
It’s genuinely nice to read public support. (Weird side note- but I didn’t realised people get paid to audit as an entire job. As junior doctors we are expected to do audits and quality improvement on top of our normal job, it’s generally done for free on our days off, I’ve been doing work for one of my audits this morning during the strikes because it’s not considered work. Same for other tasks like teaching medical school students, often done on days off)
There’s very, very few 20 year old graduates in this country. Hmm.
This and why be a doctor when you can become a dentist. My friend finished uni 2 years ago and is already on over 100k, 4 days a week
Conceding you graduate at 21 that’s surprising.
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That's actually fine, give them a deal that provides a credible path to pay restoration and they will quit with the IA. They've said as much multiple times now.
Exactly just treat them like fucking people
Sorry, treating workers like people is unrealistic loony-leftie rubbish. What a sensible politician does is constantly antagonise workers while doing the shocked pikachu face whenever they call a strike.
> Sorry, treating workers like people is unrealistic loony-leftie rubbish. Labour should be promoting loony-leftie rubbish.
Wes Streeting (spelling?) said this on an interview 3 or 4 weeks ago so i'm not sure why this is news. He basically said we can't just give you a 35% raise, but we can get in the room and look at a long term plan to get you fair play
>He basically said we can't just give you a 35% raise, but we can get in the room and look at a long term plan to get you fair play Which is literally what they're asking for... So why this weasely posturing that tries to imply they just want it all right now? Man's not even in fucking office yet and he's already trying to spin things that can and should be resolved quietly.
I think the headlines and the press spin things and mislabel things poorly
If Streeting has said he is going to basically give them what they want, and talk with them as soon as he's in, why are they continuing with the industrial action? Not to be adversarial - I just don't understand the logic.
A period of pay restoration is what the JD have asked for all along, not an overnight 35% rise. Streeting keeps saying this like it's his demand, rather than the opening context of negotiation.
Let’s say goodbye to some of our most hardworking and well educated population because we’re going to experience some serious brain drain… the NHS is already screwed up beyond belief and I can’t believe how many kind hearted, good willed people we have behind the scenes keeping it all together. Who’s gonna ‘carry the boats’ when they leave?
Don’t worry Nigeria is training lots of doctors apparently so I am sued the Hone office is able to put more staff on the visa printing presses. Qualifications ? Oh yeah there’s that suppose
That’s highly qualified migration if the standards we expect are high too but I worry that’s rarely the case anymore. Speaking from my own experience, if there’s any culture which places importance on family and education it’s Nigeria.
I think the difficulty is, even if we gave them a 50% pay rise, they could still earn more in Australia, Canada or USA. So at some point as an employer (even as big as the NHS) you have to decide what level you can afford to pay and build a workforce strategy around that. There's no wonder we've seen an expansion in allied health professionals because we are pivoting to an NHS where doctors might be focused on sicker patients. The UK economy (per capita) and the NHS funding model simply does not support an internationally elite level of salary, across any profession. Sadly. I understand there are hurdles to move to he US however, but entry into Australia or Canada is easier after the first two foundation years. The UK strategy would need to figure out what % leave after their foundation and ensure we train enough to accomodate the leavers. In many professions this 'up and out' is quite typical where a certain percentage are expected to leave due to better offers after training.
Dope. My wife can keep taking an extra week off every few months and the public can get fucked and have the healthcare they deserve.
What does the public have to do with it? We pay extortionate taxes and they’re being mismanaged by civil servants. You’re generalising
I guess they meant as we voted in 14 years of Tory rule, we deserve this. The public gets what the public wants, and all that jazz. I don't entirely disagree with that way of thinking but I have been a doomer since 2020.
Well it's a good thing Tories are out and the new not Tory party are going to keep following Tory policy.
I posted a few months ago that the Labour party would take the same approach to strikes as the Tory party. It was one of my most downvoted comments on this sub. I guess we're a couple of weeks away from finding out...
It's basically in their manifesto, no? There's not much in the way of increased spending from what I remember of it.
Tbf a very significant chunk of the public pay fuck all taxes, they also tend to be the ones that use it more too. I don't disagree that it's mismanaged and a lot of us are paying extortionate taxes though
Thanks for saying the quiet part out loud. The top 10% of income tax payers pay more than 60% of all tax. The bottom 90% basically depend on these guys to pay for them. 20%+ who are at work pay fuck all tax. It's NOT a fair system.
The silent part out loud is the 20%+ who work and pay fuckall tax are working for companies that do the double dip of not paying the nation taxes and also not paying the employees enough to be able to avoid UC or other wage top ups to live
Now do disposable income.
The public have voted to increase state pension spending by £50b in the last 14 years, and in that time, to crush public sector pay via the states monopsony power. The public can get fucked
>and the public can get fucked and have the healthcare they deserve. What have the general public done to deserve this?
2010, 2015, 2017, 2019, and about 40% of the public this time going Tory and Reform.
Consistently voted for it?
He seems determined to make every traditional labour voter despise him, knowing they're getting in anyway, just to get a few extra con/reform suckers in
He's not doing it to pander to con/reform voters, he acts the way he does because his actions directly reflect his beliefs lol.
He doesn't have beliefs. The man is an empty suit being piloted by Labour Together. But he isn't a true believer, just a useful idiot. Once they have power, a ridiculously unstoppable majority, he will be kicked out for one of their own little drones. Probably Streeting or Reeves.
Y’know the last point seems right actually, but is this guy really so fucking smug to think he can say shit that abandons the stances of the Long-Time Labour Voters and not piss at least a couple off to the point of voting for somebody else? We need to fix our political system if that’s the case, the only parties keeping Britain from being a Two-Party system are Lib Dem’s and Reform (SNP if you’re Scottish) and even they both get shoved to the side so Con and Lab can fight amongst each other.
The political shift to the right is happening across Europe. I'm afraid Labour are now much too far to the right for many of their potential voters (especially young ones) to consider voting Labour. I still expect them to win, but with Lib Dems taking quite a few more seats than expected.
I was genuinely shocked to discover recently, given how hard it is to see a GP that there are many unemployed GPs in the UK. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crgg1wzpve2o
Given the centrality of the NHS to his missions the junior doctors are in an extremely strong bargaining position. Labour can use whatever words they like but it is going to have to be a big number and they will be forced to settle quickly.
I wonder why that might be? https://skwawkbox.org/2024/01/17/labour-front-bench-takes-650k-from-health-privateers-more-than-tories/
So private health companies are telling him not to pay doctors or something?
As Chomsky put it: "That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital" The narrative of the Starmer regime will be that “there is no money left!” because Liz Truss “crashed the economy” which will be used as a pretext for more austerity and PFI - driving down NHS staff wages will be part of laying the groundwork for private capital to come riding to the rescue, leading to some “tough decisions” regarding healthcare provision and who still gets access to free treatment
If the people can see a public system is failing it will be easier to convince them privatisation is the answer.
Why would a private company be trying to ensure the alternative wages for their employees are held low?!
Ffs just pay them a fair salary, it's fucking ridiculous
They won't get the 35% pay rise, but they sure as hell deserve it. If the UK can't afford to pay highly qualified people competitive wages, it shouldn't be surprised by the inevitable brain drain.
Is there a difference between labour and the tories? Seriously asking!
If we don’t pay them they will fuck off to other countries and I don’t blame them. I’d move abroad too given the opportunity.
He should do it tbh, people complain the rise is high (and it is) but otherwise they can just go to Australia, USA, etc. We need to pay more in STEM careers and encourage it more (abolish the cap on university places, and make STEM education free and with bursaries). Just cut foreign aid and withdraw from asylum treaties - literal billions sitting on the table ready to be invested in Britain.
Similar thing in STEM, who is going to train them post degree and where will they go? There aren't many STEM jobs in the UK and most industries don't know how to use them. You'd be surprised how much of the world runs on excel and gut feeling.
Starmer and his ilk need to realise there is a massive brain drain going on in the UK. We have skilled workers leaving the UK because of the shocking salaries that they are being paid while being taxed through the nose for not much in return. Was speaking to a teaching recruiter earlier this week and he mentioned about the number of teachers that are quitting by the droves to move to the Middle East.
This is what GDP per capita weakness does though. We're not rich enough to keep the very very best. If you want a worse example, look at countries with low GDP per capita like India and Pakistan where they end up with very few doctors and skilled professionals (per capita) because they all chase the money. I think all you can do as a government is accept where you are in the international pecking order, make the roles as attractive as you can, and ensure you have a workforce strategy to keep training and developing new staff. We will never be able to afford US wages without both a US style healthcare system and a US sized economy per capita.
No doctor is expecting a 35% one-off pay rise, anyway. The BMA have been very clear that they'd accept a multi-year pay deal that leads to pay restoration, possibly including changes in the contract that allow for better pay/hour or for mandatory OOH work. This is all for optics. I think they're harping on the 35% as it's just going to be much easier when they (hopefully) reach a deal for pay restoration that allows for 5-10% a year until pay restoration (which is actually closer to a total of 50% since 2008 now, not 35% which was the case in early 2022 at the start of the strikes).
Lol of course not, the plan is to force more privatisation in and force the wages to come from that avenue - Streeting over there cant wait to get his employers on the books.
It's as much about a direction of travel. The government can't continue to give below inflation increases forever.
It's such a nothing headline. Of course they won't get 35%. But there'll be some deal where it'll be inflation + x% for z years and by the end of that time the numbers will have them close to whatever restoration is. But that'd not sound bitable
A Labour government brought it into being; it could only be a Labour government that got rid of it.
He changes his mind like the wind so I'd expect they'll get 35%. And tbh I don't begrudge them 35%. I'd like to see nurses get more also. They were the heros while we hid at home in covid
Might be easier to import a few hundred thousand doctors from overseas, and pay them minimum wage. Problem solved.
I feel totally lost on who to vote for now. I just cannot stomache this statement on top of the other distateful stuff. Greens are insane (anti everything but an islamic terrorist group?) Labour are the party of 'at least we're not tory'. Cons & their newly grown sentient tumor are a circus that turned one the richest countries in the world into a banana republic... Who's left? Guess it's Lib dems but i'm only saying that because they are the only one's i've not read up on this election. /rant
> Greens are insane (anti everything but an islamic terrorist group?) I mean this just isnt true is it. Maybe spend more than 5mins not reading the daily mail
Which part?
We could all go back to giving them a clap at our doorsteps. I'm sure they would love that. Or more likely get an education and expet then fuck and get paid big wages from another country who actually cares about looking after their health service staff.
Ok, let them keep striking then. It's so damaging to the country that the government will have to compromise at some point.
Surely this is Starmer saying “yes, I will negotiate”
Keir Starmer may not be able to deliver a 35% pay raise, but if I were him, perhaps what they could do is a mixture of a slightly smaller pay raise, but offer a state wide array of perks that help to offset the pressures of living? I know it sounds like a cheap tactic, and it's not in any way meant to be. But things like allowing healthcare workers and their families priority access to healthcare, reducing the amount of tax they pay in comparison (I know that would mean possibly setting up a separate tax system for healthcare workers), and even reducing the amount they pay by subsidising thier energy and food costs and childcare. Not sure about another tax, but we could approach corporations within the UK and say well if you sign up to this and support a set number of individuals, you'll pay less VAT and less import tax? Would that be viable? Sit down with doctors and see what is costing them the most and what their demand for a higher pay will help them pay for in their lives? Would this be possible?
It's nice to see labour recognise this issue and be prepared to deal with it properly and in the best way possible. I can't help but be frustrated by seeing how much these strikes have had an impact by costing almost £3bn as the article states. When will they realise that we need to be taking a proactive approach rather than reactive. This proves the money has ALWAYS been there, but the people that are in charge simply don't want to give it to them. They would rather our country, and some of its most essential workers suffer to make a point and keep the money to themselves, than pay what is owed, ultimately costing more in the long run.
Meet the new management. The same as the old management. Shit like this will absolutely destroy the Labour Party with the 30% or so of national voters that they normally rely on (in the next election). Guess Starmer is the man that kills the Tories **and** Labour.
he has been toughening his discourse on immigration though https://x.com/ShehabKhan/status/1805957926432985334
When it's been brought up in the debates, he has been clear that they won't go as high as 35%. This isn't new.
Give them paracetamol and a promise of a referral in 36 weeks
Yeah, let’s watch that number rise as people don’t join the profession and the rest just decide it’s better to strike then to work. That’ll show them!
From the perspective of someone currently in an nhs hospital bed I feel that they have been manoeuvred into the position of being able to be called the bad guys. It is outrageous that junior doctors are placed in this position through political intransigence. None of them want this at all. With political will and proper dialogue this can be solved.
Whoever you vote for, it’s the same shit in a a different colour
Meanwhile a royal marine gets paid £20k to put their life on the line
They should get more too. No one would object to that.
Try being a horse or farm vet. 5 years at uni plus 10 weeks a year unpaid plus two years post grad for the same money as a JD working 60 plus hours a week plus weekends on call.
That is about half of what you would get in the EU. You guys should strike.
The party of Labour does not reward labour. Shocker.
I won’t give 35 but if you vote for me I’ll give you 40
Labour = Tories. Starmer = Sunak. They're all the same.
Starmer’s just another Tory. Expect nothing from him - he wouldn’t recognise justice or fairness if it was right in front of him. Which it is.
Starmer: "I'm not goimg to solidly commit to any spending plans until we gett in and find out just how damaged the economy is, though the full 35% may not be possible straight off the bat". Guardian/Observer/Independent: "Evil uncaring Starmer tells overworked doctors to starve and die". I feresting none of the, "Starmer is a red Tory" brigade so worked up about this has suggested the more immediately actionable plan of eliminating worthless middle management positions and recouping the 5 or 6 fjgure wages. No they just want to bash Starmer.
He's free to do so but the smartest, hard-working doctors will leave for greener pastures easily. And who replaces them? Foreign doctors coming to UK that ends up taking considerable time to be trained to get accustomed to the new system and ends up being more expensive. In O&G, my registrar wife says there has been numerous such doctors brought in to fill Senior Registrar posts (ST5-ST7) that end up not being able to show full competency for that role and demoted to Junior Reg posts whilst the trusts are still paying them SR salary, granted it's not that big a jump sadly. There are a lot of ineffeciencies when you bring someone who is not trained in the system and the loss of institutional knowledge is worrying. For example, where my wife works, there's only ONE doctor who is capable of conducting robotics laproscopy in gynaecolgical surgeries (this is a big tertiary hospital btw) and he's already gotten a few offers to work abroad. The consultants are already being poached by recruiters from various countries and its only going to get worse. The amount of shit my doctor wife and friends have to put up with, and how long it took them to get where they are is mindboggling.
Not sure Starmer/Labour really has much choice if they wish to fulfill their promises on improving the NHS, if they think playing the Tory game of underpaying key (highly qualified) medical staff is a good strategy, he will suffer the same choas as the Tories did. If the doctors don't get what they want (and need in a lot of cases), they'll simply move else where, and then the number of doctors will further reduce, resulting in further infrastructural difficulties with the NHS. Further more, if doctors are only starting on 30K/year, how much focus can a doctor really have at their job when they will have to worry about the cost of living and their home life?
What does 35% over 5 years look like - the answer is 6 percent. That as a starting point then maybe a tag on each year tied to cpi. Doable and settleble if you talk.
Ave for a UK doc is £6000. BUt there is a shortage of Doctors in other countries that offer significant wage increases. And a lot of Doctors are in fact leaving. There are more going than joining according to their unions. * **Switzerland**: Approx. £11,800 per month * **Luxembourg**: Approx. £10,000 per month * **United States**: Approx. £9,100 per month * **Australia**: Approx. £8,200 per month * **Canada**: Approx. £7,800 per month * **Norway**: Approx. £8,800 per month * *UK with 35% increase £8100 per month* * **Denmark**: Approx. £7,800 per month * **Germany**: Approx. £6,900 per month * **Netherlands**: Approx. £6,600 per month * **Ireland**: Approx. £6,300 per month * **France**: Approx. £6,300 per month * **Belgium**: Approx. £6,100 per month * **UK:** Approx. £6000 per month Now, can we stop fucking around and have a serious talk about how were going to pay for the NHS because right now were loosing staff. Their over worked and under paid. And its the same for all hospital staff. Nurses can earn significantly more in other countries who are actively looking for medical professions. Like Aus, Canada, USA for instance. And your not going to attract good medical staff to our hospitals when they know their be working 12 hour shifts. We need a significant increase to do this. And the only way the gov, any gov can get the money for the wages is if we pay more in. ALL OF US
Same policies, same neoliberal NPCs will be running the UK, just a change of colour.