Would you support the doctors' strike.

I've just realised that there are 22 pages about this, and some people still think it's just about money!

I agree with you, Iam.
There are six teachers in my family, and all of them would get out because of the way they are looked at by the government and its admirers.

Teaching assistants who quite often take whole classes even though not qualified are payed less than shop assistants.

If it was just about money, heaven help education and the NHS.

When I was a bloody teacher, I once worked out my hourly rate and it was less than shop worker. But that was when there was a minimum rate for shopworkers, negotiated by the union.

No I didn't know that "bloody teachers" was a turn of phrase.

I agree with Lilygran and trisher on this issue. Heads of Academies, VC's CEO's all earn huge salaries but ordinary class room teachers don't. trisher makes the point that teacher/doctor/(add social worker) recruitment are below targets which suggests all is far from well.

I don't think it's only pay that is an issue though. The mantra of public service bad, privatisation good has been a theme in recent years with public servants undermined and devalued.

Teacher recruitment and doctor recruitment are both below targets at the moment, so something is radically wrong. If more pay is the answer wouldn't it be better to pay up so that we have enough staff to keep things running?

iam64The world is now run by accountants and managers who do not understand and could not do any of the tasks central to whatever the core business is. They 'manage' people who are skilled experts and these kind of people are very difficult to bamboozle. So there is some evidence that, particularly in public sector organisations, and particularly where the staff have public support, management carries out a destructive campaign designed to damage public support and community spirit among staff. Then new priorities are set, easy to quantify but not necessarily central to the business, new contracts are imposed and we all suffer. Except the Chief Executives, Vice Chancellors, heads of chains of academies and other such people, gillybob who now receive really disgustingly high salaries in comparison with the people who do the core work and have been on frozen pay for some years.

We have less doctors per head than most other countries in Europe, and not enough junior doctors to cover all the shifts in hospitals properly. If it is about pay it is about paying enough to retain enough numbers to keep the NHS functioning properly. The junior doctors are well aware of all the problems and have said that many of them will leave because the service will not be safe under the new contract.
Does anyone seriously think that Junior doctors are well paid for what they do?

I have 2 friends who are teachers . Both are very happy with their excellent wage. ( their words) and their amazingly long holidays, spent with their families . Neither are on " minimum wage" .

Iam as I think you probably already know it was a turn of phrase. Although I can say that some of the teachers in my DGD's school are " bloody " terrible ! Thank
goodness they are moving schools in September .

Well said Luckygirl.
gillybob, from your posts it's obvious you work hard but is it necessary to refer to teachers as "bloody teachers"? Most teachers, like you, work very hard, work long hours. If they were paid an hourly rate, I suspect it would be much less than the current minimum wage.
Public servants of all kinds seem to be demonised in much the same way that immigrants and so called benefit scroungers are by some of the media and general public. What's the point of that I wonder.

I am not sure that it is really about the money at heart. I think it is about Hunt taking them for a ride and making monkeys of them.

The research that concluded that more deaths occur out of hours has been shown to be flawed, so the premise upon which this new contract has been drawn up is meaningless.

It is not just about money for this current tranche of junior doctors, but about the future of the NHS - about keeping medical staff here, rather than watching them sail off to other countries where they are treated with respect.

The whole sorry argument has come about because once again (as with teaching) policy has been made on the hoof from flawed evidence (or indeed no evidence at all) and is just a political gesture to show how tough they can be. Gove (as education secretary) gave us all sorts of nonsense that appeared to have been drawn up on the back of a drinks coaster in the pub - this is just another example.

I do not buy the argument that just because former generations of junior doctors worked dangerously long hours (as indeed my OH did) then new generations should suffer the same fate. I fully grasp that one of the outcomes of better working hours has been a loss of opportunity to learn, but that simply means that medical education should be overhauled to make sure that the curriculum and work experience is fully covered without exploiting the junior doctors.

It still all comes down to money though doesn't it? The junior doctors want more, the consultants want more, the nurses want more, the bloody teachers want more....... Where is it all going to come from?

For the record my GP surgery is most definitely open on a Saturday morning until 1pm, my NHS dentist is too.

Nothing to do with the medical side of it. It is their outdated employment contracts

In what way are the medical profession not in the 21st Century? I would have though with all the developments in medicine they have had to cope with they are certainly ahead of most of us Av1dreader

The government wants it to be taken back to pre NHS years, hardly the 21st century.

No I do not support the Dr strike. All Dr contracts need to be revised. The medical profession need to be brought into the 21st century like everyone else.

There are, unfortunately, badly run hospitals all over the country but it is quite wrong and irresponsible of Hunt to make sweeping statements about the whole NHS as though the worst were standard.

Lilygran, that may be the case at the hospital you were in, but in 2013 I had two separate operations and two admissions at a different hospital because of neutropenia. All four occasions included weekends and no rounds were done by Consultants at either hospital at the weekend.

At the second hospital, the kitchen staff didn't work at weekends either, so it was cornflakes and sandwiches for those two days!

I think it's a fiction that consultants aren't around at weekends. I've been in hospital over the weekend several times in the last couple of years, different departments, two different hospitals and the medical teams were all there and did rounds as usual. The consultants I know personally do a rota with a weekend on, and two on call ie one weekend in four on leave. And they don't get paid for unsocial hours or overtime. What Hunt doesn't explain is that few hospitals run outpatient clinics on Saturday and Sunday so fewer staff are needed. But how many GPs run surgeries at the weekend?

There might be some idea that consultants will work 7 days but of course it isn't going to work because there simply aren't enough of them to cover. Most hospitals do have extended hours (early morning and evening) for operating theatres. One of the problems is the lack of anaesthetists, can't do an operation without one!
Thanks for the link dj

www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/dominic-pimenta/jeremy-hunt-goes-nuclear-12-things-you-need-to-know

They are going to be the next ones to be given an ultimatum by Hunt, along with the nurses.

When the junior doctors were on strike, it was the consultants who manned A&E.

And they are the ones who are most noticeably absent at weekends.

I am sure this has been mentioned, but what about the consultants in this all singing all dancing 7 day NHS. Do we assume that there is tacit agreement that they will work?

www.politics.co.uk/video/2016/02/10/watch-how-tiring-is-it-to-be-junior-doctor

Watch this, gillybob.
We can all have different opinions about what is happening in the NHS depending on what has happened to us or our relatives.
What matters, surely, is whether we still have an NHS to complain or rave about.

You say about all the nurses not being available for the NHS but being available for bank nursing. You cannot blame them for wanting more pay. Blame the system that allows this to happen.

If you look for any nursing jobs, they are all through bank companies. It's the privatisation of the NHS. You must realise that.

The doctors have already given way and negotiated on lots of points. The proposed contract cuts their pay in real terms and will result in some leaving for countries where they will be paid and treated better. There is already a 24/7 service in the NHS for people who become ill what there isn't is a 24/7 access to clinics and elective surgery which seems perfectly reasonable to me. You don't expect your dentist to offer you a Saturday or Sunday appointment so why should a hospital? It is also about patient safety. Doctors numbers are already low and one young doctor described how she had a shift covering 200 patients but was also given a second pager because there was no other doctor available so she was responsible for 400 patients! Why should she receive less money on a Saturday for such a responsible position?