-Removed-I don't think it's the job of the average junior doctor to decide government policy regarding the health service in general. They may have asked for a rethink, but it's really not their place to decide what that should be, except in as much as paying doctors a decent salary and providing more reasonable working conditions would encourage more people to become doctors.
I agree that asking for a 35% pay increase is a blunt instrument, but from an individual doctors' perspective, they see their wages decreasing in real terms, and that they are having to work under often quite unacceptable conditions, and currently, as individuals who have now had to resort to collective action to draw attention to their circumstances, a blunt instrument is really all they have.
Of course those who are on strike want to go back to work, as soon as reasonably possible, so, a thousand quid...? That buys too many Bir Bintangs....
-Removed-Well, I'm sure the treasury would like to negotiate the doctors down from a 35% starting point, but my point is that they aren't doing it, or even attempting to do it. The NHS is a government funded organization, who (the government) are it seems to me treating the NHS as if it were a private company, and who seem to need Acas or whatever to even begin a dialogue. As aforestated, to use the 'We think your demands are too high, therefore we aren't even going to talk to you' approach is in my opinion irresponsible, and is, as you say, costing lives. It must surely be beholden upon the government to care for the health and wellbeing of it's electorate, and the health service in general is currently not in good shape; to expect the doctors to address the macro - problems that exist is unreasonable, that's the job of the government, and that begins by at least addressing the problems that individual junior doctors face.
Still, we clearly aren't going to agree about everything relating to this, and I'm not prepared to screw up a friendship because of it, so let's agree to differ, and here I bow out of the discussion.
@a-unique-nickname saidI quoted you verbatim
Yes. When you work out how we can reenter discussions.
@a-unique-nickname saidThe system is broken! I never thought that the Royal College of Nursing would ever agree for nurses to strike but they recently did and now the junior doctors have joined them. There is so much job dissatisfaction.
I didn't say or mean all. The NHS was a great idea but it has failed. Separating urgent/life threatening illness like cancer, heart attacks etc which would remain NHS with non-urgent/life threatening care like a dodgy back etc would free up money that could be used to support those who really need it and result in a better service.
Waiting 9 months for an MRI th ...[text shortened]... nd redirected to the private sector but paid for by the NHS isn't good enough, the system is broken.
Ward nurses are reportedly thin on the ground while the NHS is overrun with highly paid managers. They implement radical changes every couple of years - because that’s what they’re paid to do. Frequent change places bigger demands and crippling stress upon our NHS workers.
Years ago nurses were trained at certificate level while working in a hospital and received a wage. That kind of training was very accessible to people planing a career or thinking of a career change. Then came someone’s idea of Project 2000! Nurses were to become more highly skilled and trained at diploma level. That soon changed because nurses were then deemed to need a degree? So the older, cheaper, certificate level trained nurses; SRN’s & SEN’s (who were fantastic nurses btw!) were phased out. So what we now have are degree nurses and low skilled nursing support workers. Most degree nurses aspire to higher wages with a management post within a few years then spend most of their working day in an office or a meeting. Non management nurses also spend a lot of time in offices as the amount of admin is unbelievable.
Thus we get reports of patients being left in wet beds, not eating their meals or missing out on analgesia because most of the nurses are congregated around the admin desk or in offices, tapping on a keyboard.
@badradger saidGreat thread btw 👍🏼
In 2008 a uk doctor was paid the equivalent of 24 tins of hienz beans per hour, now its down to just 10
@woodgirl saidNicely put. We have this crazy system that if your good at your hands on job you get promoted to an admin. post.
The system is broken! I never thought that the Royal College of Nursing would ever agree for nurses to strike but they recently did and now the junior doctors have joined them. There is so much job dissatisfaction.
Ward nurses are reportedly thin on the ground while the NHS is overrun with highly paid managers. They implement radical changes every couple of years - beca ...[text shortened]... cause most of the nurses are congregated around the admin desk or in offices, tapping on a keyboard.