Would you support the doctors' strike.

I would support them taking action - I do have to declare an interest as my son is a medical student. One of the proposals is that the maximum hours that can be worked in a week is to be reduced from 91 to 72 hours. Sounds like a positive step, but there is a big BUT. At the moment if doctors work more than 91 hours then the hospital trust faces a monetary penalty, under the new contract there is no penalty if hours exceeded. Mind you I have heard that at present doctors are leaned on to falsify their time sheets and declare less hours.
The BBC have really annoyed me by constantly referring to overtime payments, which the doctors don't get! They are paid a salary which is made up of two parts - a base salary for their grade and the second component is in respect of how many of their working hours fall in "unsociable hours". A cut in the times denoted "unsociable" = cut in salary.
Hunt said that by imposing this pay cut it would mean that hospitals would not "be forced into rotaring less doctors on at the weekend"! Well if we are going to have the same number of doctors, who are not going to work as many hours as before this just means we'll have insufficient doctors on duty during the week. It is also worth remembering that "junior doctors" are all doctors who are not consultants, so these salary cuts will affect experienced doctors in their 30's and 40's with mortgages to pay and families to support.

I give thanks every day for the NHS. Having had my life saved by the amazing skill and dedication of doctors and nurses, and having had my quality of life improved, I cannot praise it highly enough. Doctors don't take industrial action lightly and I support them totally in their bid to safeguard the NHS. I believe the government wants to change the system radically and privatise it, a disastrously destructive move, in my opinion.

janeainsworth What non-monopolistic system do you think would be better?

We are losing doctors, we have to recruit from other countries so how can the numbers be increased !

Of course I've been in hospital at the weekend! That's exactly why we need to modernise the system. Shorter hours for junior Drs will, of necessity, need more Drs. Its because they're so stretched at the moment that 24/7 working isn't efficiently feasible at present. So respect Drs education and commitment, shorten their hours and train and recruit more of them. Simples! If only....

I hope that people did not read into my post that I would wish the sort of punishing long hours my OH did to apply to the current generation of junior doctors.

I think that this new contract is devious and misleading, and I am not surprised that there is protest.

jane10 Have you ever been in a hospital at the weekend?
Search 'Im in work Jeremy' (sic) on Facebook and you will get some idea of the conditions under which the junior doctors work.
The problem with the NHS is that it is a monopsony - a single employer employing most of the workforce of a given sector.
This isn't good for employees or consumers.

They aren't proposing to shorten hours, as I understand it, they are proposing to redefine what constitutes normal working hours so that junior doctors who work unsocial hours or over their scheduled shift won't get paid in recognition. This has nothing to do with increased productivity or fairer contracts. It is a strategy designed to bring a large group of highly intelligent and highly skilled state employees under control. One aspect of this is to alienate public opinion by suggesting they are being irresponsible by taking industrial action.

People get ill or have accidents on a 24/7 basis. I've never understood why NHS seemed to work to a 5 day week.
I think the new plans are probably reasonable as a step on the way to a more up to day way of working but it also needs many more Drs and other staff to sustain the planned new system. As we are all potential patients its in all our interests to get on with this.

I don't need to read their new contract. I just know that if Hunt is involved none of it will be to our benefit.

I support them too. They do a very responsible job and get paid a similar rate to a supervisor in an office who goes home at 5.30 and has every weekend off.
It is a long hard road to get to consultant level. They get moved around every year. Even when you are a registrar you get moved to a new hospital every year, (around your region e.g. the whole of Yorkshire). It is difficult for them to have any kind of social life or personal life.
This is an unnecessary battle. Statistics show that certain groups of patients are more likely to die at weekends. The reasons for this are complex and include the fact that there are more emergencies at weekends. Or that there are fewer consultants in the hospitals at weekends.
Hunt and Cameron cooked up the idea that all hospitals should be offering a 24/7 service to respond to this. It appeared to be electioneering craziness - but now that they have won the election (which they did not expect to do) Hunt is going full tilt into this change of pay to junior doctors. Like a lot of ministries they are hurtling into "reforms" as quickly as they can, before a few by-elections or defections start to nibble into their majority.
A change to doctors contracts may have many unforeseen and unwanted consequences e.g. doctors working longer hours and making more mistakes, more of our doctors going to Australia where they will get paid more.
The doctors should stand up to Hunt and we should support them.

I support them. The fact that they think the situation bad enough to strike tells me that the new contract can't be a good thing. They will vote with their feet. I have always thought their hours were silly in the past.

Like others, I do not feel sufficiently knowledgeable about junior doctor contracts (actually, I'll revise that to I am completely ignorant about junior doctor contracts, just as I'm completely ignorant of most all work contracts that haven't been my own) but I feel that what the government publication about it says is not unreasonable (shortened hours and a reduced number of long shifts, for instance). Therefore, I remain neutral on the issue until further enlightenment.

If a junior doctor can't gain enough professional experience except by working ridiculous, family unfriendly hours, then there's something wrong with the system.

Ever since before my brother trained and qualified as a doctor (he has now retired) there has been talk of a shortage of doctors. Seems we need to fix that for a start.

As usual, it's not a simple black and white issue with one view being completely right and the other completely wrong.

I have read the government publication which thatbags posted and find it is really difficult to comment on the fairness or otherwise of the new contract.

Unless you are actually a junior doctor and know how the present system works and how the new contract would work in practice (not just on paper), I can't see how you would know whether they will be better or worse off in practical terms under the new contract.

However, much of the medical profession is very concerned about the new contract and the fact that the government has not shown itself willing to enter into proper negotiations but appears almost to have assumed it to be a foregone conclusion.

I can't believe that such a large number of doctors, both at junior and senior level, have no reason to be very angry about this contract. Surely junior doctors wouldn't consider the very drastic step of striking unless they felt it absolutely necessary.

Something I hadn't realised was that junior doctors' starting salary is currently only £22,636 which I think is quite disgusting. I was earning a lot more than that as a legal secretary and yet these doctors, even at a junior level, take on the sort of responsibility and stress that many other people would steer clear of, however high the salary might ultimately rise to.

I agree, Anniebach.

Another thing that seems to be forgotten is the fact that nowadays it's easier to travel and get a job in a different country, working with better pay and conditions. Work/life balance is considered more important now.

Because previous generations of doctors worked very long hours is it still acceptable ? We use to send ten year old children into the pits and mills

This is an article from a junior doctor.

www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/nick-carpenter/not-fair-not-safe-6-reasons-junior-doctors-are-preparing-to-strike

I support them. What is forgotten is that a junior doctor is often in his 30s or 40s, and has a family and a mortgage.

www.hospitaldr.co.uk/blogs/dr-blogs/letter-that-sums-it-up-hunts-pay-rise-offer-is-nothing-of-the-sort

It sounds good when Hunt says he is offering them 11% pay rise, but initially he offered them 15%.

It is swings and roundabouts.

My OH (who is probably roughly contemporary with galen) worked very long hours indeed as a junior doctor. I hardly saw him when our first two children were small; and I was basically a single mother. This was not a good thing. He would come home occasionally, but all he did was sleep. I would not wish that new young doctors miss out on family life in that way. He was very tired indeed, did not have proper meals and it was not a positive experience on a personal level.

But .......... he always says that, if he had not done all this work, he would not have been able to gain the necessary experience to function as the GP that he eventually became, and is concerned that new junior doctors do not have sufficient learning and experience under their belts to be safe. But neither are they safe when they are suffering from sleep deprivation.

I would hope that they do not strike - but, times have changed, and, quite rightly, workers' rights (in any profession) have been improved and we cannot turn the clock back on that, and I would not wish to. The good old days were not really very good and I support the idea of better working conditions.

Just because i taught classes of over 35 kids when i started teaching does not make it right Galen .

If we want enough doctors so they do not need to work stupid hours without a break, so that they are on best form to treat/diagnose etc. in a climate of greater expectation and less 'respect' then we should be looking to make the job both socially and financially attractive. Successive governments have undermined public sector workers by negative press and meddling in the minutiae of professional work and so now there is a crisis in recruitment across many areas (education /health/law) whilst demanding more and more 'accountability /targets met'

I would support the doctors if they do strike.

It looks ok to me too! Is everyone sure it's not just because they don't want any weekend work! It doesn't seem to add to their hours at all, or affect their money.

Absolutely I would support them but hope that it never comes to that for everyones sake.

Yes this looks OK to me. As long as they don't have to do crazy long shifts like in the old days. I agree with Galen

I don't know enough about it.

However, I do know that about 15 years ago DGodD was a junior doctor working extremely long hours. Her Consultant was very unsympathetic, saying all junior doctors had to go through it, he had had to do so years before - which didn't make it right.
However, this new proposal seems to limit the number of hours they would have to work which must be a good thing - who would want to be diagnosed or treated by a doctor who had had no sleep for 36 hours?

Galen don't forget that unlike in our day, most junior doctors now graduate with debts of >£50k.
A salary of £25K is not generous when you consider that they not only have to repay that debt but fund further study and examination fees.