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Originally posted by kruppers

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Originally posted by Yard



Finally, Yard, A&E doctors love it. A&E is the trading room of the NHS. It's brilliant, exciting and frightening. They'd be bored doing owt else.

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I know that very well as you may have seen one of our girls on duty on TV at Kings College Hospital working her 'nuts' off on a 12 hour night shift?

I have the greatest admiration for those in the Health Service but if you need a £50K pension in your 60's then you may have slipped up somewhere,especially as most GPs I know are married couples?

Whatever you get you won't starve?

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Originally posted by Yard



Finally, Yard, A&E doctors love it. A&E is the trading room of the NHS. It's brilliant, exciting and frightening. They'd be bored doing owt else.

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Originally posted by Grahame B


Mr 'crew, did you miss this bit of my post ?

'It was important to explain, the letter said, that action was being taken "in order that our voice is heard by the government", so that doctors could get fair - not preferential - treatment.'

The union has also questioned government claims that the current scheme - which was only agreed in 2008 - was unsustainable, pointing out it brings in a £2bn-a-year surplus.'

Could someone tell me who 'we' owe this money to ? -and will our kids forgive us for rolling over and accepting all the bollix we are fed so that they can privatise the nhs and education ( and anything else they can think of ) so that a few can make a profit from it. Our kids will be paying for all that too.

lansley is refusing to have any dialogue - he's being deliberately confrontational. This isn't about pay or greed , it's about honesty and trust.

and actually, yes, I think Doctors are top of the pops.

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Originally posted by thedrumcrew

Nice post mate could you put some facts to this


Is it true you only have 5 mins before the next person?
Has a doctor ever been put in prison for getting something wrong
What is the worse could happen if you do get it wrong.

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Originally posted by docadiddle


I’ve thought a lot before posting this. First of all, this isn’t a strike in the normal meaning of the word, only routine work will be withdrawn and just for one day; urgent care including cancer treatments will still be provided. The vast majority of the general public won’t notice anything. In the pantheon of industrial action over the years it will actually be the dampest of damp squibs.

Many of us (by the way it’s all doctors not just GPs) feel that it won’t do us any favours and may end up doing harm but it’s come at the end of a long road where the government has basically decided to refuse to negotiate. This is after the NHS pension scheme was completely revised in 2008, a revision which even the government’s own commissioned report has shown to be affordable. As I understand it, the NHS scheme works by current members paying in and this revenue is used to pay out those who are retired. As Grahame B points out, it currently takes in more than it pays out and all projections show that the current £2 billion surplus will continue and actually increase in future years: NHS pension contributions are in fact subsidising the rest of governmemnt spending! The only caveat for this projection is that it’s assumed that there will still be NHS employees paying in in 20 yrs time; an assumption that perhaps the government doesn't agree with.

There’s a lot of history to this and my own feeling is that it’s the final straw after a number of issues over many years and not just the pension thing. I’ve been an NHS doctor for 25 years and in that time have come to conclusion that the glue which holds the NHS together is the goodwill of the people who work in it. Clinical staff of all types have continually done the little bits beyond the call of duty to make sure it keeps going; an extra hour or two here, collecting and delivering a housebound patient’s prescription, phoning a patient int evening who you saw earlier in the day to make sure they’re OK. Over these 25 years that goodwill has been eroding, clinical staff have lost autonomy and gradually become more and more managed to the point of robotisation; only things which can be measured are valuable. Hence the ridiculous 4hr wait targets in A+E, for example, which sometimes mean that patients who should have waited are given priority over someone with more pressing needs, just to tick the box.

Working hours have changed a lot recently- I now work about 50 hours a week- but I and my colleagues of a similar vintage started our working lives doing pretty onerous rotas in our hospital training jobs; 1 in 3 was common and this meant you worked 9-5 Mon-Fri plus 1 in 3 nights and weekends. If you were on call on Tuesday night this meant starting work 9am Tuesday (although you’d always actually begin at 8.00 just to make sure the work was done) and finishing at 5pm on Wed, 32hrs later with not a lot, if any, sleep in between. You’d also be on Friday night that week as well of course but would at least finish at 9am on Sat. Weekends were usually Sat 9am til 5pm Monday although one job I had in Halifax was Fri-Sat-Sun finishing the weekend at 5pm Monday, 80 hours straight through dealing with acute medical emergencies plus looking after the wards with maybe 8-10 hrs of sleep. The best part was that these additional hours were paid at 30% of the standard rate (not time and 30%, just 30%!) the reasoning being that we were only 'on call' and therefore not supposedly working all the time despite the fact that we invariably were. This is what we all did, it’s in no way unusual. I remember once having a discussion with a young lad who was a patient on a surgical ward who thought I was taking the p1$$ and got pretty angry at me when I told him I was earning £1.70 an hour on that Sunday afternoon, he just refused to believe me.

That’s a digression but it does have a bearing on this. We’ve stuck with the NHS, worked hard for ridiculous hours and put up with goodness knows how many complete changes of NHS policy over recent years. We’ve done this in the knowledge that we’ve got a decent pension to look forward to at the end of it; a fair deal. Yes, as a doctor I am relatively well paid but, FWIW, my projected pension is nothing like the £58k which seems to be doing the rounds, that’s a figure which my hospital colleagues seem to be looking at (this was news to me as well and quite a surprise).

One thing which really dismays me is the continued negative portrayal, including in this thread, of GPs. We’re an easy target which the government seems to delight in attacking. I can understand that it’s not always easy to see what we do whereas it’s no trouble to count how many heads the A+E specialist has sewn back on that week. I can assure you however that it’s a bleedin’ hard job and one which gets tougher every year. Some of the comments in this thread show an incredible level of ignorance about what our work actually involves. I wouldn’t expect you all to know everything but it would be nice to be given a little bit of credit. We’re the front door of the NHS, treating chronic illness, managing minor illness, sifting out those which need secondary care (hospital treatment) and trying desperately not to make any mistakes. I once tried to count how many important decisions I was making every day and found it to be a big number especially when you’re taking the vast majority without any help or discussion with a colleague. We do deal a lot in uncertainty and risk management, referring only a small percentage of the people we see on to secondary care. The alternative case where there is no GP and you all send yourselves to whichever specialist you think you might need would bring the NHS to its knees within a week, I’m afraid. Believe it or not, most of us do actually want to try and help people and enjoy the satisfaction which that brings.

Nowadays we seem to be the default backup when social services get into a sticky spot as well; refer to the GP, he’ll sort it out. We’ve also been given the poison chalice of commissioning health care (ie, rationing), a policy which seems destined to make us the scapegoats for the unpopular decisions which will have to be made in the future. The more the NHS is now being squeezed the more we’re having to cope with. I sympathise with you if you have bad experiences with your GP-I’ve also heard examples of poor practice which make my toes curl- but please don’t generalise. The seemingly popular view of us as patronising incompetents who weren’t clever enough to do ‘proper’ medicine and whose patients are an inconvenience keeping them from the golf course is laughably far from the truth. Come to think of it, we’re not dissimilar from drummers; looks pretty easy until you actually try doing it.

I realise this is a serious and lengthy post but I had to answer some of the comments which have been made. I thought I needed to put a side that you won’t have heard in the press. I’m not looking for sympathy by the way, and please don’t stop slagging off GPs just because I’ve posted this. I’m a big boy with thick skin and can hold my own.

Will have to stop now, writer’s cramp but not before filing application for recognition of longest post on record.

Keep well.

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Originally posted by stakka

Irrespective of data this, data that and the other.... again I ask - why should GP's be exempt from the cutbacks that the majority of others are having to face ? - most of whom have just had to take it on the chin rather than being able to hold the public to ransom in being able to strike ?

And please try and leave "they work hard" out of any answers - it kind of implies many of those who don't lead lives as comfortably as GP's don't work hard.

But in the end if they want to strike then go ahead..... maybe it will bring them back down to earth as it has to all the other recent strikes / threats of strikes which have been phenomenally effective and sympathised with .....not !

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Originally posted by NormanHouse

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Originally posted by gaz farrimond

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Originally posted by NormanHouse


On the broader point of Public Sector pay and conditions I'll say this:
There is an RAF Camp but a stones throw from me, what do you think a mid ranking Officer there is on? What do think a Primary School Head is on? A dentist?

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Mid ranking will be Squadron Leader (Or Major/Lieutenant Commander) pay is £47K-£57K per annum dependant on length of service. Pension paid at 65 after 15 years service (Average for non-pilot RAF) Lump sum £24K, pension £13K.

Head and deputy head teachers pay (England & Wales) £42K-£106K dependant on scale point and location. Pension paid immediately after 32 years (Average teacher working length) Lump sum £96K, pension £32K.

Armed forces pay has not been cut, but has been frozen for 3 years. So effectively a pay cut at whatever percentage points inflation is at the time.

The military pensions have been reviewed and from 2015 will be in line with the new average salary pension model being put in place by the government for all public sector employees. This is the second pension change for the military in the last 10 years, with the last being the SDR in 2004.

As for the Olympics, we got the Olympics in 2004, I didn't see many people complaining then. Unfortunately we are stuck with it and the games need to go ahead. Don't get me wrong, I really don't care as to who puts on the Olympics, and I do believe that the money would have been better spent elsewhere. But would people still be complaining as much if it were the World Cup? After all, that didn't almost bankrupt South Africa did it?

But, back to the point, public service pensions do need some form of revision; and, for the most part, the pensions conditions of anyone currently employed in public service are still fixed until the change over in 2015.

But, can the country really afford to be giving out £20K+ (Dependant on position and pay, it can be double this) pensions to people at age 40 until they die? 40 is the youngest you can be to qualify for an immediate payment government pension after giving 22 years of reckonable service.

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Utterly untrue. Lazy or anecdotal research. I'm not buying one word of this drivel.No one gets a massive pension at age 40 - 22 service years or not.

New rules introduced last year mean the Maximum is 21 months pay - a change from one month for every year served. Tough on those who have done 30 years or more.

The Pay freeze of which you speak was for MoD civilians - if you were lucky enough to get a job there now you would start on £13,850.

But there is a recruitment ban like with the local authorities and I suspect the Police, Fire Service etc. pension is one eightieth of salary x years done - so if you did 40 years (no one does) you would get £6900 pa with a lump sum of £21k. Most will get 20 years in at most these days. Remember the retirement age has been abolished and State pension will not start for people in there mid forties or younger until 68.

Who are these Squadron Leaders who start work at 50?

They retire at 55 like cops and Firemen - Do you really want to see 68 year old Firefighters?

Why do you think the Senior Police Union bloke told the Home secretary she was a disgrace last week? The Hutton report stated the tipping point was a few years ago and now the sustainability is not an issue. Average salary pensions make all but the least ambitious and hardworking worse off - where is the incentive to progress when the years at the bottom count more than the promoted years? No one goes in at the top - most will spend a long time getting to a good job.

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Originally posted by gaz farrimond

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Originally posted by NormanHouse


On the broader point of Public Sector pay and conditions I'll say this:
There is an RAF Camp but a stones throw from me, what do you think a mid ranking Officer there is on? What do think a Primary School Head is on? A dentist?

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Mid ranking will be Squadron Leader (Or Major/Lieutenant Commander) pay is £47K-£57K per annum dependant on length of service. Pension paid at 65 after 15 years service (Average for non-pilot RAF) Lump sum £24K, pension £13K.

Head and deputy head teachers pay (England & Wales) £42K-£106K dependant on scale point and location. Pension paid immediately after 32 years (Average teacher working length) Lump sum £96K, pension £32K.

Armed forces pay has not been cut, but has been frozen for 3 years. So effectively a pay cut at whatever percentage points inflation is at the time.

The military pensions have been reviewed and from 2015 will be in line with the new average salary pension model being put in place by the government for all public sector employees. This is the second pension change for the military in the last 10 years, with the last being the SDR in 2004.

As for the Olympics, we got the Olympics in 2004, I didn't see many people complaining then. Unfortunately we are stuck with it and the games need to go ahead. Don't get me wrong, I really don't care as to who puts on the Olympics, and I do believe that the money would have been better spent elsewhere. But would people still be complaining as much if it were the World Cup? After all, that didn't almost bankrupt South Africa did it?

But, back to the point, public service pensions do need some form of revision; and, for the most part, the pensions conditions of anyone currently employed in public service are still fixed until the change over in 2015.

But, can the country really afford to be giving out £20K+ (Dependant on position and pay, it can be double this) pensions to people at age 40 until they die? 40 is the youngest you can be to qualify for an immediate payment government pension after giving 22 years of reckonable service.

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Originally posted by rollingthunder

A woman GP, a complete stranger, on her way to a colleagues wedding stopped and got out a car to help when I collapsed in the street with a ruptured appendix. She accompanied me to hospital in the ambulance and missed the church service.
When my wife was terminally ill, our GP went way beyond the call of duty and popped in most days. I found out later it was during her lunch hour. She was visiting on her own time.
I'm on their side.

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Originally posted by NormanHouse


On the broader point of Public Sector pay and conditions I'll say this:
There is an RAF Camp but a stones throw from me, what do you think a mid ranking Officer there is on? What do think a Primary School Head is on? A dentist?

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Originally posted by Th0mas25

I'm not sure whether I agree with the strike or not. But I've always thought that when it comes to pensions and working conditions... the government should not go back on what was promised. Yes by all means change the T&Cs for someone coming into a job now, but don't have someone working 40 years and looking foward to retirement and then pull the rug out from under them.

I understand that the country has to make savings but it still definitely seems to be the 'little people' bearing the brunt of the cuts, and still not the politicians & bankers who caused most of this anyway... they must be rubbing their hands in glee at this doctors strike situation as most of the country are now bitching about the doctors and not aiming their anger and concern at the people who actually deserve it!

Also, so many of the cuts are only short term penny pinching... cut education, cut public facilities like libraries, pools, gyms etc. cut the health service... what do you have in a few years time? More sick people, more unemployment, and more unemployable people, probably more crime... which I reckon is all going to cost more in benefits, housing, healthcare etc. in the long run than what the government is saving at the moment. But the Condems don't give a crap because they'll be out by then and they can point their finger at the leading party and blame them instead

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Originally posted by thedrumcrew

Is a doctor's job more important then a policemen or soldier

I would say there all the same they all do amazing jobs and i think they all work hard.
But they will all have cuts to there wages pension's it may not be fair but the country is not fair and we are skint.
Will the doctors still be financially ok with the cuts i think they will
Will soldiers i don't know time will tell.
I am not having a go at doctors but you say about us paying £75 for 5 mins.
If we don't pay what we owe then the kids will be paying it for sure

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Originally posted by Brigham

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Originally posted by pure_rock_fury

If you think all GPs are paid more than one hundred thousand pounds per year then you can get to feck.

If you can't recognise their value to society then you can get to feck.

If you think their job is easy then you can certainly get to feck.

If you haven't read anything about this extremely complex matter in a medium beyond a tabloid newspaper and are espousing ill-thought out drivel then you can feck the feck right off to feck.

As far as I'm aware, GPs were offered a pension deal that was later withdrawn after it was agreed upon. At the very, very least, this is nothing more than workers protesting a retraction of previously negotiated working conditions.

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This. I'm quite pally with my GP and we have discussed this. He works his arse off for a lot less than 100k a year. Why does everyone think that a GP only works 9-5?

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Originally posted by stakka

It is not about whether GPs are good, bad, worth it or not worth it......... a massive proportion of society has been hit and had to accept compromises due to the world economic situation - some far worse than not getting quite as much pension than they were originally promised. Many lower paid health workers are being hit hard too so why should GP's, who are all comfortably paid, be exempt from what a lot of people are going through ? - plus still be allowed to strike when they are working in the public sector.

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Originally posted by thedrumcrew

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Originally posted by scoobydude

Let's drop the doctors wages to the average level, and see what kind of people you get wanting to be doctors. It's not an average job, and frankly I want the best minds doing it, not your average Joe. It has to offer a premium to get the best people studying medicine, or they'll all go off and do something more profitable. When I need a doctor I want to know that they're the some of the most able people in society, and I'm quite happy to pay a premium for it. It's funny how there's no uproar about MP's wages or the VERY generous pension terms they enjoy....

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Why dont' they see what we see.
The country is in a mess and everyone need to give abit not go on strike.

We are fecked not now but about 7 years time the sh-t will really hit the fan

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Originally posted by pure_rock_fury

If you think all GPs are paid more than one hundred thousand pounds per year then you can get to feck.

If you can't recognise their value to society then you can get to feck.

If you think their job is easy then you can certainly get to feck.

If you haven't read anything about this extremely complex matter in a medium beyond a tabloid newspaper and are espousing ill-thought out drivel then you can feck the feck right off to feck.

As far as I'm aware, GPs were offered a pension deal that was later withdrawn after it was agreed upon. At the very, very least, this is nothing more than workers protesting a retraction of previously negotiated working conditions.

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Originally posted by thedrumcrew

quote:

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Originally posted by pure_rock_fury

If you think all GPs are paid more than one hundred thousand pounds per year then you can get to feck.

If you can't recognise their value to society then you can get to feck.

If you think their job is easy then you can certainly get to feck.

If you haven't read anything about this extremely complex matter in a medium beyond a tabloid newspaper and are espousing ill-thought out drivel then you can feck the feck right off to feck.

As far as I'm aware, GPs were offered a pension deal that was later withdrawn after it was agreed upon. At the very, very least, this is nothing more than workers protesting a retraction of previously negotiated working conditions.

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If the pot does not have the money to pay them as things have changed and the country is running out of money.

The poeple that cannot see this is not thinking about the furtrue and they can all feck off.

We had the money and blow it

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Originally posted by pure_rock_fury

If you think all GPs are paid more than one hundred thousand pounds per year then you can get to feck.

If you can't recognise their value to society then you can get to feck.

If you think their job is easy then you can certainly get to feck.

If you haven't read anything about this extremely complex matter in a medium beyond a tabloid newspaper and are espousing ill-thought out drivel then you can feck the feck right off to feck.

As far as I'm aware, GPs were offered a pension deal that was later withdrawn after it was agreed upon. At the very, very least, this is nothing more than workers protesting a retraction of previously negotiated working conditions.

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Originally posted by scoobydude

Let's drop the doctors wages to the average level, and see what kind of people you get wanting to be doctors. It's not an average job, and frankly I want the best minds doing it, not your average Joe. It has to offer a premium to get the best people studying medicine, or they'll all go off and do something more profitable. When I need a doctor I want to know that they're the some of the most able people in society, and I'm quite happy to pay a premium for it. It's funny how there's no uproar about MP's wages or the VERY generous pension terms they enjoy....

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