Would you support the doctors' strike.

Granjura, for you.

koshh.org/the-connection-between-the-junior-doctors-contract-and-the-american-corporate-takeover-of-the-nhs

Thanks- but truly, all GNeters should read it.

Just like 'loss leaders' in supermarkets- so is private treatment in private hospitals under the NHS at low prices... Helps break the system- knowing full well they will get it all back and tons more in the long run. It's all very carefully planned, and accounted for.

Would someone please explain to me just why the junior doctors think it's totally unreasonable to expect them to work at weekends? My father was a GP and he managed to do so and also had a very happy family life. Mind you, this was in the days when you didn't go into medicine for the money - possibly I have answered my own question.....

This dispute is about the contract for hospital doctors not GPs. Hospital doctors do work weekends. maybe not so many consultants, but the non-consultants i.e. all the others, do. Anyone who has been in hospital at a weekend will have noticed there were doctors available. Sometimes things are delayed. e.g. tests. because other departments may not cover weekends as comprehensively as doctors. If these departments were to work weekends, it would probably cost the NHS a lot more.
J Hunt keeps saying that more people die at weekends because the NHS does not give 24/7 cover but the truth is we just don't know the reasons why death rates are not spread evenly across the week. And even if we did, the detailed reasons for this have not been researched. See my links from the British Medical Journal and the Lancet, above.
So it's a bit like saying that there are more car accidents on a bank holiday so the police contracts should be changed because the police don't work on bank holidays. The police would of course respond that they do work on bank holidays and that, in any case, a shortage of police on duty might not be the cause of the increased accidents.

I've got fed up with saying junior doctors do work weekends. What do people think happens? You go to any hospital and you are assessed by a junior doctor at any time of any day or night. If you are in hospital it will be a junior doctor who is called if there is an emergency and you need care. And JH banging on about the figures for weekends is just smoke and mirrors.

Yesterday, there was a debate about the NHS in the House of Lords.
This is one of the contributions. Cut and paste, obviously, but never mind. It contributes quite well to this discussion.

"I speak as a parent of a junior doctor who qualified at the University of Nottingham and now is a resident doctor at NYU medical centre in New York. It might be interesting if I were to compare and contrast aspects of the two systems as seen through his eyes.

The first aspect is the teaching. At NYU each resident receives around 14 hours of high-powered classroom teaching each week. The regime is free food, phones off, high concentration. Lectures are given by specialist consultants. As he puts it, “Every day I lunch with giants”. At Nottingham he was lucky to get two hours per week.

As for attitude, at NYU he feels a valued member of the team; in the east Midlands he and all his colleagues felt underappreciated. Most NHS medical staff were disgruntled and demotivated. Of his colleagues in Nottingham, a third either left the profession or went to work abroad. Each one had cost the NHS £300,000 to train but, when they left to go elsewhere, no one noticed, no one took responsibility, there was no exit interview and no one cared.

Then there is the pay. In his final year in Nottingham, he earned about £40,000. It is true that his basic pay was £23,000 but, with unsocial hours banding, the pay soon mounted. At NYU he earns $60,000—exactly the same amount—but in the United States almost all junior doctors carry student loans in the region of a quarter of a million dollars, and repayment starts immediately.

Finally, there are the hours. Last month in New York, he worked 80 hours per week, as he has done every month. He works six days every week, including many weeks on night shift. Even on daytime shifts, he leaves home at 5 am and often gets home at 8 pm.

The American junior doctors are the ones with really unsocial working hours. They are the ones who struggle to make ends meet and the ones who should be complaining, but there are no picket lines to be seen on First Avenue and 32nd Street. The question is why? Let me hazard a guess. In much of the UK, junior doctors—indeed, even senior doctors—are treated as objects: cogs in the wheel or items on the spreadsheet to be moved here and there at will. There seems to be little realisation that to get the best out of people you have to encourage them, you have to integrate them as part of the team and, most of all, you have to make them feel valued. It is called leadership. Looking at this junior doctor crisis, there seems to be little of that in evidence in our NHS but it is what we really need."

By the way, the debate went on for three hours. The motion they were debating was

That this House takes note of the ability of the National Health Service to meet present and future demands.

What a ridiculous title. I do not think the Tory government needs to worry about the House of Lords rocking the boat.

Exactly Trisher- doctors do work at week-ends and nights- but for emergencies and care of those in hospital. What the Government wants is not this, they want 24/7 working- eg routine operations to take place 7 days a week, routine everything going on 7 days a week.

It's always been the case, and is the case all over the developed world- that routine care, clinics, operations- take place Monday to Friday- and that at night and week-ends it is emergency care and taking care of those already in hospital- not routine operations (eg a 7 day list for operating theatres and clinics- which has never ever been the case). One junior doctor on Question Time explained eloquently that this would take doctors AWAY from the week-day rostas, and create more problems and risks, NOT less.

A separate issues for GPs- but at the moment GPs are expected to provide very early morning and evening consultations- and sit there twiddling their thumbs as nobody wants those times anyway. Possibly a good time to write insurance reports, etc- but then they might as well be at home, with their families.

Just a point about GPs "twiddling their numbs", anybody who has tried to get an appointment within 72 hours at any time whatsoever would surprised to hear that. There are clinics, home visits (yes, they still exist) as well during the day, but people who are still in work, commuting or need a partner at home to babysit are more than happy with early or evening appointments. I was waiting for a repeat prescription recently at 5.45 and saw our own GP (the senior partner) plus another legging it out of the health centre as if he had a train to catch!

Probably had one... or a child to babysit for.

or an emergency home visit...

Firstly operating theatres are used in the evening for routine operations already. However this takes a huge amount of ancillary staff as well as the doctors (junior and consultant level). My DIL who is a consultant works part time and does one very late evening and one very early clinic so that she is available at times to suit her patients. One of the real shortages and difficulties is the availability of anaesthetists for any operations.

Not at his age, gj (babysitting the child) and they don't do home visits at 6pm.
No, it was just Friday
( I was particularly miffed as I had been waiting for him to sign a repeat prescription which he had omitted to do earlier. )

Ales, perhaps they were legging it to save someone's life

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jeremy-hunt-warns-could-force-7183463

perhaps to babysit grand-children. Perhaps going away for the week-end- doctors do have families and 'lives' too (surprisingly).

The exact point of an article I have been reading in the Guardian, granjura.

Isn't it time Hunt realised that junior doctors are real people, too, not robots?

Interesting link dj.

How can one force agency staff to go for permanent contract? I am not sure.

Agency contract perhaps allow for taking longer holidays unpaid, more flexibility of work/life balance, etc.

Comparing to supply staff in teaching- I wonder how their rate is calculated. For teachers (now that was a few years ago, may have changed- do not know) - the rate was calculated on the salary of the teacher, according to their years of experience and seniority- for the number of teaching days in the year, and divided by that number. But then there was no holiday pay, of course. When I stopped working full-time ans started doing supply teaching, I was very expensive, compared to junior or less seniority staff- but schools were prepared to pay for experience and reputation/references, especially for A'Level classes. Only one Head, that I knew well, asked for me to cover key exam time for GCSE and A'Level- but wanted to put me on short contract without holiday pay. I said either you pay me on supply rates, or 50% of Summer hols. She refused- but begged again and again- I stood my grounds and didn't take the job (mid April to end June).

I have just been reading a blog on www.onmedica.com from a doctor about a Sun article where they showed how well off doctors are by printing facebook pictures of them drinking champagne on holiday.

The blog ended by saying that possibly the doctors were sounding out the job prospects in various places abroad, places where they would be treated like humans with families.

Same here, granjura. I spent a lot of time teaching supply because the contracts had changed. Was never out of work, except when I wanted to be.

Most supply teaching is now booked through agencies who pay a basic rate with sometimes a small increase for experience but often not. It used to be calculated with same rates and increases as other teachers- not now. A lot of supply cover is now done by classroom assistants.

Was not sure about that - poor kids- if they have a long-term illness teacher or one on maternity leave just before exams !?!

I support them 100% having experienced first hand the bad impact of their working contracts on my junior doctor relative...remember health trusts average out the hours the juniors work in six month to ensure that on paper at least the total divides neatly into no more than 48hrs per week. in oractice, they frequently work 60-110 hour shifts, often without meal breaks or sleep and lose weight, concentration, confidence, social,lives etc as a result. and to all those people who reckon they don't deserve to be paid more than a mini supermarket trainee manager, ask yourselves how mich harder and longer the junior doctors have worked from senior achool,onwards to get into med school, and remember they have to keep taking and paying thousands for exams while junior doctors....

The blog ended by saying that possibly the doctors were sounding out the job prospects in various places abroad, places where they would be treated like humans with families.
But that would be in countries where there is no NHS and the public have to pay a lot more than we do or very high insurance premiums.

My friend's daughter worked for a while in NZ as a GP and did not like the system there at all; she has come back to the UK.
Which begs the question - should we be paying more?

Last sentence of my post should precede the last paragraph to make sense!

We do not need to be paying more, Jalima, more of the gdp should be going into healthcare. Most EU countries spend more than 10% on healthcare.