Lots of mistruths in this thread. Don't know whether to intervene or correct people.
Long and short - a junior doctor is anyone in a training post from right out of medical school all the way up to their last day of training before they get their certificate of completion. It doesn't include staff grade and associate specialists (who have their own contract), consultants, or GPs.
Basic pay is around £22k for a doctor just starting so if all they did was 9-5 Mon-Fri, that's what they get. They get extra for working those weekends and night shifts. This might be as little as 30% extra all the way to 80% extra.
The NHS has routine care Mon-Fri, 9-5, but is equipped for emergency care 24/7. If you want routine care all week long, you need 40% increase in staff (not just doctors) and 40% increase in funding to match. What the Govt wants to do is spread what's already available over a longer period of time. That means fewer docs during the week. Given that the NHS is struggling to provide standard routine care at times (cancelled operations, cancelled clinics etc), and tends to run at 90% capacity, there's not enough resources to then enable full routine care.
Jeremy Hunt also wants to get rid of the extra pay but raise basic pay. He initially said 15% but then later said 11%. So a junior doc earning say £33000 a year for 56 hours a week would end up getting £24200 for the same work.
This means they can earn on average £40,000 in the initial stages of training
As pointed out, not in the early stages. Unless they're doing lots of antisocial hours and hence clocking up something like 80 hours a week.
Low (ish) salaries are no surprise to them going in.
No one is a junior doctor forever.
Not everyone progresses to consultant or GP. Some end up as staff grade or associate specialist instead. That doesn't mean all junior docs should have rubbish pay just so they can work as doctors.
Throw more money at Doctors?
They don't know they are living IMHO.
I agree Overtime needs to be reigned in, particularly for junior doctors, but throwing money at Doctors never cured anything.
There are plenty of opportunities for them to make more money. Labour under Blair gave them plenty.
Very much smacks of "doctors should be grateful to even serve the public. They should work for free I tell ya". Junior docs aren't asking for more money. Just no change in the contract (which would result in a loss of income. Like I pointed out above, a junior doc earning £33k would suddenly earn £24k for the same hours. How many of you would happily do that?
Ummmmm to make that they need to do a hell of a lot of extra shifts and overtime, and those that do are not in the majority at all, so no, it's not a fact.
Wrong, a junior doctor is any doctor that is not a consultant, GP's are by their very nature junior doctors so almost every single GP in the country is in fact a junior doctor.
Incorrect. A junior doctor is someone who hasn't completed their training. A GP, a consultant, a staff grade and an associate specialist may all have completed their training and would not be classed as junior doctor.
Do drug companies still buy them cars and holidays though?
Drug companies used to court consultants and GPs in order to influence their prescribing. Junior doctors never had such a relationship. Drug companies have had a ban on doing this now. Still occurs in America.
They could always retrain as ermm... accountants?
Why? They want to be doctors.
OK...technically.
There's not a gp in the land on junior Dr salary nor working junior Dr hours.
GPs are independent contractors. They are not junior doctors unless they are FY or GP trainees.
