Show me a mediocre office job that pays more than a Junior Doctor's salary please?
Junior doctors strike was all about money.....
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Show me a mediocre office job that pays more than a Junior Doctor's salary please?
Indurain's Lungs
Legend of Garry Nelson
There are many (define "mediocre" though) as a junior doctor's basic pay is around 22k at the start. After 11 years this rises to 47k - not unreasonable after 16+years of training/experience.
The money grabbing argument doesn't hold up when both sides have said all along that any new contract is cost neutral. Not only that but it will eventually be cost saving (once new doctors work though the system). Doctors are not getting more money and we're never trying to get more money. They were, however, trying to get a fairer system of pay to reflect work done. This cost saving might have been palatable if the government weren't continually going on about 7 day services.
The weekend effect was a lie that has been continually disproven since publication (the highest death rate is on a Wednesday). So it is really pandering to convenience, which is fine if you fund it. Simply stretching 5 days over 7 doesn't work, especially where specialties like paediatrics already have 20% vacancy rates in junior doctor rotas.
Yeah I wasn't sure whether to be a rep in Ibiza or a Doctor but now you've convinced me. Sounds like a right laugh.
I said jobs that saved lives.
Nurse or midwife, £21,692 - £28,180.
Average Doctors training salary, £37,000.
I know middle managers in IT, Marketing, Law, Engineering and Energy companies that all earn more than £37k in nice 9am-5pm jobs. Compare that against stressful shift work and a never ending education.. Personally I think if you're smart enough to be a Doctor, and you pick working in the NHS above a law degree and working at a private firm you should be rewarded financially far more than they currently are.
ROSM
Well-known member
You're right, I love seeing those services being paid for by Google, Starbucks, Vodafone, Lord ashcroft and arcadia
GreersElbow
New member
Woah, that's a bloody good training salary... An F1 would earn roughly 22k
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
l don't agree. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, there is no such thing as your society when it comes to how we think of others. Some people are very avaricious and self-centred - Hoogstraten would be an extreme example and some people are incredibly compassionate and almost always putting others first - someone like Calderon for instance and the rest of us are somewhere in between. Even within each political party you have a whole range of views. The Tories have the Reform Group and One Nation Tories at centre-right and the Free Enterprise Group at the other end. Labour have Reform on the right and Momentum on the left. It's just not true that there's a homogenous set of values.
Also, teachers, nurses and especially doctors have jobs where you can earn a fair whack compared to a lot of people in the private sector when you add in things such as pensions, holidays and suchlike. There's really no need for all your doom-mongering. We're one of the most liberal and fairest countries in the world.
Indurain's Lungs
Legend of Garry Nelson
In the interests of balance - an F1 would get 22k as basic (for a 40 hour working week). Total pay would be around 30k to reflect nights, evenings, weekends worked, up to a total average of 48 hours a week (with up to 90 hours in a single week).
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
You're cherry-picking specific jobs at specific levels in totally different markets in the private sector and comparing them to specific public sector jobs (and in the case of the doctors at different points in the career) that have no comparison anywhere. Sorry but that's bad science.
Trying to match like with like in your example (which you can't really do anyway) trainee accountants earn about £25-35k, I reckon it's the same for trainee IT guys which appears comparable with trainee doctors. No idea about trainee lawyers so can't comment but once qualified, doctors can earn 6 figure sums in the public sector and take on private work which is extremely lucrative. And you have also not taken account of the vocational aspect. Of course nurses and doctors should get a decent salary but at the risk of sounding harsh, people who work in the public sector should not expect huge pay rises.
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I don't know why anyone is surprised by this. The strike was always about money. The doctors wanted more and the government wanted to pay less. The days of striking for real causes of genuine hardship ala toll puddle martyrs are long gone. Strikes are now always about money. This doesn't mean they are necessarily wrong but it is wrong to try and pretend they are about some nobler cause such as safety or in this case 'saving the nhs'.
Gullflyinghigh
Registered User
- Apr 23, 2012
- 4,279
Completely agree with you.
Truth be told, I'm not far from the training salary myself and there's no way I'd consider my job on a par (or even close) to a doctor's. It's valued at that amount where I work (and yay for me that it is) but in terms of stress, working hours and impact on social life then almost anyone in the NHS is worse off than I am, fair play for them wanting recompense to show that.
Indurain's Lungs
Legend of Garry Nelson
This all depends where you put the value in academic achievement, study etc.
Medical school is incredibly difficult to get in to, thus attracting the top students - a situation which most would like to continue so the best and brightest kids become doctors rather than working in the city etc. 5-6 years of medical school now results in an average debt of £70k which is now subject to interest at market rates. Future earnings are likely to be good but the current crop of juniors do not enjoy the same perks that the old school have (final salary pension with low contributions etc.) This all depends on how you put a "value" on different professions and how much people should be rewarded for their achievements/effort.
I'm not sure a trainee IT guy is the same as a junior doctor but I don't know enough about the IT industry to say if the IT guys on 25-30k are the cream of the crop with 6 years of undergraduate and postgraduate training.
Not seen anyone mention this, but the leak that's come out is really poorly timed - given that the BMA recently agreed a negotiated settlement that wasn't about the money, but rather all about the safeguards that they'd argued were the key sticking points for months.
The new agreement actually has a lower Basic Pay rise than the contract that Hunt had intended to impose. It also has a lower Night shift pay increase, and the weekend working was completely overhauled. All in all, it came out cost neutral for the government: in other words, there's no extra money going into the deal that's been agreed vs the deal that was going to be imposed.
What's changed in the new deal is safeguards to prevent excessive consecutive weekend working; safeguards to ensure equality so that women who take time out to have children aren't left behind on the pay scale; and more besides.
All up ... the settlement that the BMA has agreed to puts a big fat lie to the claims made in the leaks. They have accepted they discussed the option, but at the end of the day the settlement they agreed was not about money at all. It was about fairness, equality, and safety - as those are the three areas where they scored big concessions from Hunt.
Edit: Actually, also want to discuss the current train of discussion in here re: pay. For me, the Public vs Private sector is effing irrelevant. The argument started with a claim that Junior Doctors go into their profession because they're after the "easy money" (to paraphrase). Well, it's hardly easy money. The easy money is in the private sector. I count myself as one of those - I'm pulling in more than a Junior Doctor does doing a job where I get to work from home at least one day a week. I work for a Telco, I work hard and I get paid well for it, but I also know at the start of the week that by the end of the week I'll have worked 37 hours. And I know that if I make a mistake, the worst that happens is that a few thousand people receive an email with a typo in it. Required qualifications for my job? Not much ... a hard worker, who can analyse data sensibly, write a sentence that makes sense, and have a few ideas on how to make things better than they currently are on a website / email campaign / marketing campaign. Compare that to a Junior Doctor, who doesn't know how many hours they're working at the start of the week, but does know that if they make a mistake they could ruin (or even end) someone's life, and has a mountain of debt to pay off incurred while being pushed mega hard at uni.
Junior Doctors don't get it easy. (And while I'm at it, neither do the nurses and other support staff who help those doctors do the great work they do).
The new agreement actually has a lower Basic Pay rise than the contract that Hunt had intended to impose. It also has a lower Night shift pay increase, and the weekend working was completely overhauled. All in all, it came out cost neutral for the government: in other words, there's no extra money going into the deal that's been agreed vs the deal that was going to be imposed.
What's changed in the new deal is safeguards to prevent excessive consecutive weekend working; safeguards to ensure equality so that women who take time out to have children aren't left behind on the pay scale; and more besides.
All up ... the settlement that the BMA has agreed to puts a big fat lie to the claims made in the leaks. They have accepted they discussed the option, but at the end of the day the settlement they agreed was not about money at all. It was about fairness, equality, and safety - as those are the three areas where they scored big concessions from Hunt.
Edit: Actually, also want to discuss the current train of discussion in here re: pay. For me, the Public vs Private sector is effing irrelevant. The argument started with a claim that Junior Doctors go into their profession because they're after the "easy money" (to paraphrase). Well, it's hardly easy money. The easy money is in the private sector. I count myself as one of those - I'm pulling in more than a Junior Doctor does doing a job where I get to work from home at least one day a week. I work for a Telco, I work hard and I get paid well for it, but I also know at the start of the week that by the end of the week I'll have worked 37 hours. And I know that if I make a mistake, the worst that happens is that a few thousand people receive an email with a typo in it. Required qualifications for my job? Not much ... a hard worker, who can analyse data sensibly, write a sentence that makes sense, and have a few ideas on how to make things better than they currently are on a website / email campaign / marketing campaign. Compare that to a Junior Doctor, who doesn't know how many hours they're working at the start of the week, but does know that if they make a mistake they could ruin (or even end) someone's life, and has a mountain of debt to pay off incurred while being pushed mega hard at uni.
Junior Doctors don't get it easy. (And while I'm at it, neither do the nurses and other support staff who help those doctors do the great work they do).
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Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
Of course they're not and that's my point. You simply can't compare the two jobs. People go into these jobs for different reasons and the rates of pay for these jobs depend on totally different factors in totally different professions in totally different sectors. The reason I mentioned the IT and accountancy salaries for trainees was because Biscuit was saying that IT guys earn a lot more than trainee doctors but he was comparing the pay for IT middle managers.
I'm not trying to belittle any aspect of the doctor's pay, training, skills or future earnings and I apologise if it comes across like that.
Indurain's Lungs
Legend of Garry Nelson
Very sorry, misunderstood you!
Exactly, no one has ever asked for more money. People are forgetting that the BMA's job is just to get the best deal for the profession and, therefore, will discuss what possible means are necessary for this. The discussion led to a conclusion that a settlement with all the concessions you mention above was better in order to protect working conditions and disadvantaged groups (e.g women, those working less than full time).
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 36,019
was there another settlement apart from the one about recognition and payment for work at weekends? what other safeguards have they been negotiating, as i recall items originally in contention were settled before the last strike.
i find it incredulous that anyone pretends the sticking point hasn't been about pay when BMA spokespersons have said that its about pay at the weekends.
I wouldn't say that middle managers, IT or law are a good example of "mediocre " would you, and as for 9-5, well maybe in the 80's lol
sten_super
Brain Surgeon
The pay issues were always (as far as I can tell) about distribution of pay, rather than absolute levels. The contract that government threatened to enforce would have cut incomes for those that work the crappiest shifts (i.e. the most nights and weekends) and benefitted the rest. It would also have severely damaged the pay prospects of those that take time out of the front line (for maternity/paternity leave, medical research or other purposes). I guess the DoH figured that they could appeal to the majority with basic pay rises and force the contract through - but it turned out that the junior doctors (and the BMA) were rather more concerned with what they perceived as 'fairness' than their individual bottom line, for which I think they should be applauded.
On top of that there were other issues that the BMA were not happy with, including the safeguards to stop hospitals asking doctors to work excessive hours (which would have been bad for both junior doctors and patients). The government gave some way on most of these during the negotiations that took place after industrial action took place, but since they could not come to agreement on the biggest issue (the distribution of pay, as outlined above) these changes never made it into the contract that was to be enforced. It's only now, that they've finally come to an agreement on the last issue, that the new contract up for vote includes all of the additional changes.
Would mediocre not be an excellent example of middle managers? I.E not the organ grinder and not the monkey, somewhere in the middle.
No, no it isn't lol