Would you support the doctors' strike.

98% in favour of strike action.
Definitely a legal strike.

If they do it will be the first time Doctors have gone on strike

The junior doctors obviously feel very strongly about this to have voted to strike in such numbers. But I am suspicious of the role the BMA is playing - they are a trades union and put their members first, not the patients and have done that since they opposed the setting up of the NHS in the first place. I don't think the doctors realise what a difference this will make to the public view of their profession, much as it did to the nurses when they went out on strike in the 80's

I don't think I do agree with this strike. The most sick and vulnerable of society will suffer. Junior doctors are exactly as their name suggests. They are junior doctors. Doctors in training. They know the hours and conditions before they take up their positions and they have to go through this tough training period before coming fully fledged and extremely well paid doctors.
My fear is that this generation of junior doctors will eventually become fully trained doctors. Are they then going to hold the country to ransom?

They are sticking in part because they fear that the changes will make things less safe for patients because the controls on their hours will be removed.

Unlike other strikers they are not striking for more pay - just an unreasonable change to their contracts.

Hunt is pretending this is about 24 hour cover. As we all know the NHS provides 24 hour 7 day a week cover for those who need it. They do not close A and E at weekends or send all the inpatients home and it is junior hospital doctors who are providing the care.
You cannot extend things like outpatients unless you have more doctors to work the additional hours. And there is no more money to do this.

This strike is not happening in Wales where Labour run the health service.

To take a perspective view-there's nothing like the human cycle-I have in my possession the fees of a visiting GP for 1925-about 5/- (a fine mathematical conversion exercise?)Also a fascinating historical fact-both socially and economically.Plus la change?!

gillybob You say "they know the hours and conditions when they take up their position". Surely the point is that the government is proposing to change their hours and conditions and, it appears, without proper discussion/consultation?

I don't think they are exceptionally well paid, at least not until they reach more senior levels. Frankly, I think anyone who has trained, at great expense, for 5-7 years and who takes on responsibility for the lives of other people deserve to get decent pay?

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-hunt-an-absolute-disgrace-for-refusing-to-face-mps-questions-on-junior-doctors-strike-a6741931.html

I think the general public will be behind the doctors in this strike. I think most of them know that it is for the NHS, not for pay, for having a doctor who is not too tired to treat them properly.

Jeremy Hunt would not even go to parliament to answer MPs questions about the doctors strike.

House officer in 1978 £800 pa. hours unlimited. Weekends starting 12.30pm on Saturdays. 2 nights off a week starting about 7pm

www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/caroline-molloy/jeremy-hunt-george-osborne-and-other-nhs-shambles-this-week

How many of you have heard about this consultation? It closes on 23rd.
NHS England, Jeremy Hunt and the Department of Health, and Healthwatch England do not seem to know what and who is involved. But it is about what will happen in the NHS over the next five years.

Come on, Galen. Do you not want better terms and conditions for your children and grandchildren?

This is another reason to support the doctors against the government.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/nov/16/andrew-lansley-three-more-advisory-jobs-drugs-firm

Lansley is now in the House of Lords and can change laws in this country.

Yes, better conditions! BUT! The reasons I went into medicine would not let me strike!
It was a vocation

So if somebody has a "vocation" that means they must sacrifice their family life and their own health in order to follow it? How exactly would that benefit the NHS in the long run?

My father, who was a GP, would be spinning in his grave (if he had one) at the actions of these junior doctors. When did entitlement take precedence over the whole concept of being a doctor? Yes, the hours are long, as has been said before, but no one walks into medical training without being aware of that fact. If the strikes go ahead I for one hope that their pay is docked.

What are they supposed to do then Galen - roll over and agree to an unreasonable demand by a Secretary of State that seems to be determined to reduce the NHS to a mere shadow of what it was? He has already exercised his enormous power by sneaking through a part privatisation of NHS England without the approval of parliament. So we have a situation where services like Health Visiting getting outsourced (to a combination of local authorities and private companies) - and now there are rumours to big cuts in "public health" spending in the Autumn Statement.
There is not even a sensible rationale for the changes to doctors contracts. You know as well as anyone that junior doctors already work weekends.

By the way, it's not just the hospitals, it's the GP surgeries as well. All GP trainees are junior doctors.

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-practice/practice-topics/education/gps-must-support-junior-doctors-and-heres-how/20030507.article

So make sure you have all your meds sorted before the strikes.

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/views/blogs/editors-blog/jeremy-hunt-is-playing-a-dangerous-game-with-junior-doctors/20030501.blog

Why has Hunt refused to go to ACAS?

gillybob when you say "doctors in training* they are actually qualified doctors and are in (I think) the 4th year of "training" to be consultants or GPs. The term Junior Doctor applies right up to what under the old system was called Registrar (now I think Specialist Registrar) so not student doctors or even what we used to call "Housemen".
"Junior " suggests callow youths and is very misleading.

The NHS needs to come up with a better deal for its permanent staff and stop paying through the nose for locums.

This isn't just a recent thing, is it? I know doctors and nurses who have been complaining about the NHS for thirty years.

Junior Doctors are medical graduates who are still undergoing training before full registration with the GMC.
After registration they become Registrars undergoing further specialty or GP training.

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/22/patients-could-die-junior-doctors-strike-jeremy-hunt

Hunt, Cameron and Osborne still do not get it, do they?

On balance I agree with Galen and would not support a strike. Junior doctors have always had a tough time and I don't see that this generation are any worse off than any other.

Monetary rewards do come later to them.

Jeremy Hunt has consistently refused to negotiate on new contracts and has claimed that the problems which have arisen are because the BMA has 'misled' the junior doctors who do not understand the issues. He told the BMA that the new contracts would be imposed anyway, even if doctors did not agree to them and had not been involved in discussions. Talk about Catch 22! Under the threat of strike it looks as though he might back down.

I do not think it's whether the junior doctors are worse off; it's whether the general public are worse off under the new regime, and we will be if they all go abroad.
The government are relying on the vocation of the doctors. They seem to forget that these doctors are just as intelligent and capable as they are, and can see through the privatisation lies.

This is an interesting article.

civitas.org.uk/newblog/2015/11/will-the-1st-december-see-a-winner-in-the-junior-doctor-dispute/

Yes quite, for the country to spend many thousands training doctors only to have them leave the country is a/ plain mismanagement or b/ an evil plot to undermine the NHS.
What with everything else going on, i suspect b is the truth of the matter.