Should doctors strike?

jomantha said:
If a self employed GP wants to maximise earnings - GOOD for them. There are so many people in this country who begrudge others the chance to do well.
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Completely right.

This country doesn't like people to do well. The media and their 'fans' build them up to a point, and then love it when said people fall. Or do something daft. Then they are public enemy number one.

When the government agencies (pretty much no matter which one it is - and I do facilities management for one of them) start thinking about their inefficiencies before their automatic decision of affecting frontline staff things will become much much better.

I've said for a long time - run the government agencies more like a business, and the country would be much better off.

Not completely relevant, but shows how inefficient the governments buying power is, but they can (and most laptops are) rent laptops and software from external 'approved' companies rather than buying them. Which costs them ridiculous amounts of more money than just buying them in the first place.

Government departments think nothing of creating a scheme that costs £20m to replace an existing system to save £100k/year. When the agencies stops doing things like that, the country will be better off. Without affecting frontline staff.
 
mid_gen said:
Agree totally...except that because part of the pension system is in the black now, doesn't mean it will be in 5 years time with people drawing pensions longer, untold final salary schemes still paying out,
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yes, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect that the surplus generated now,and over the last few/next few years are used to fund that. Assuming of course that those forecasts that suggest a future deficit are right.

Except you can't cause no-one tells you there's no underlying fund supporting the NHS pensions. Pension contributions from both staff and employer go straight to the treasury and are paid directly from them, with the excess of £2bn going on other things. Thats a lot of money in anyones book, by not saving it for the future not only is the treasury being grossly irresponsible as we see, but also storing trouble for the future. Furthermore it begs the question what is happening to that £2bn that belongs, collectively the NHS pension plan. If its been spent on other things then effectively you're either taxing all 1.7m NHS employees too much (via their pension contributions) or stealthy borrowing £2bn from the NHS (via its employers contribution).

mid_gen said:
probably another 2-3 years of stagnant growth (more likely a depression) about to kick off this year.
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its an aside - but I suspect we're probably in one, and measures like this aren't helping us get out of it. Paul Krugman and other economists writing particularly in the New Yorker (Paul is a nobel prize winning economist before anyone says he's sensationalist or anything else) have some very interesting and sensible view points on this( the current general state of the economy that is)
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mid_gen said:
Mind you, just as you can't escape the fact that public sector pensions have to be slashes....you can't escape the unions who will make everyones life a ****ing misery in the meantime.
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I think you can escape it. As pointed out they were very reasonably renegotiated a few years ago. I agree the unions will stick up for there members. I can understand why their action. Doesn't mean I like it, but when you have a group thats never even threatened strike action in almost 40 years, and that group is both educated, not known for its militant tendencies and important to society then maybe listening to them would be better
 
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This thread has descended for some into who can shout the loudest in the pub.

On topic, Be thankful we have freedom of speech and the right to take industrial action.

It's a right all of us have, irrespective of earnings and status, and irrespective of whether we are right or wrong or people agree agree or disagree with us.

So, doctors can do this if they want and fair enough.

If you don't think that should be the case, then maybe you might like this country to be more at the extremes of the political spectrum.
 
How about we let the doctors who aren't happy pull out and repay them their contributions and associated bonuses - that offer isn't on the table either.
 
Defiance said:
This thread has descended for some into who can shout the loudest in the pub.

On topic, Be thankful we have freedom of speech and the right to take industrial action.

It's a right all of us have, irrespective of earnings and status, and irrespective of whether we are right or wrong or people agree agree or disagree with us.

So, doctors can do this if they want and fair enough.

If you don't think that should be the case, then maybe you might like this country to be more at the extremes of the political spectrum.
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except of course police and armed forces , both of whom get paid considerabl less than doctors for a far more hazardous job.

if doctors really want to strike then fair enough, but they cant also expect the people they are impacting on (ie joe public) to support them.
 
gramps said:
£53k-81k, is enough for a GP who will probably never experience blood or faeces in his entire GP career - everyone has to train and often under difficult conditions. Some people have found their training of no use to them, they no longer have a job, let alone a pension and lump sum payment to fall back on - they have to live in the 'real' world.
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Tbf a GP probably had his finger up someone's ass at least once a week lol

Not all doctors will see blood or poo depending on what they treat.

They do get paid a lot of money but for good reason. Us scientists get paid a lot of money too ( not as much as doctors and we have spend more time at Uni) for what we do.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
I must have missed the bit about all university and post-grad training that's required to sit behind a till and pass things over a scanner....
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I work is sainsburys as an online shopper PMSL
 
On the Huh said:
We all work for the f'ing Government...It's called Tax!:p
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To be pedantic I'd say we don't because the Government don't pay us to do most of the tax work for them. It's worse. We are slaves.
 
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