Doctors in England to hold longest strike ever

The article tries to perpetuate the myth that the NHS is under-funded. A glance at this table:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS

shows that is not true. (One fact: Japand spends 11% of gdp on health care, the UK 12%.) The problem the UK faces is extraordinarily poor results for the level of expenditure. It is very difficult to see a GP. NHS dentists refuse to accept new patients. There is little proactive health care, only reactive. A&E departments are frequently over-whelmed. Hospitals levy significant car park charges and contract-out collection to aggressive private firms. I am sure there is much more.

These problems can only be resolved if the functioning of the entire monolithic service is reviewed from top to bottom. I suspect it has headed down many wrong paths with poor practices established in every area. Past piecemeal changes have lead the NHS down a blind alley from which it needs to escape. The time for a rethink is long overdue.

A good starting point will be to challenge the BMA - the doctors' extreme-left union that puts confronting the government above patient care. The BMA has politicised health care in the UK to an extent never seen before and - like the miners before them - are trying to hold the country to ransom. The politicians need to find the courage to deal with that, or else the UK will never have the quality of health care that its level of expenditure justifies.

Some NHS junior doctors are indeed on 14GBP/hour, yet have to pay back tens of thousands in student loans for six years of medical school, take out personal indemnity insurance (in case they ever get sued for malpractice), pay annual fees to the GMC to be on the doctor's register and pay for ongoing exams out of their own pockets to become specialists.

London dustmen get 13GBP/hour.

Typical whining from both sides. So British. Perhaps some readers can offer a win-win solution to this conundrum unique to the UK? My solution would be for the NHS to fire the whiny spoiled children and hire responsible skilled doctors from India and the Philippines. They should learn their place in the pecking order.

My solution would be for the NHS to fire the whiny spoiled children and hire responsible skilled doctors from India and the Philippines.

To attract more doctors from India, the UK may have to pay them more than now.

https://getgis.org/blog/best-country-for-indian-doctors-to-migrate

Gareth MylesToday  06:55 pm JST

(One fact: Japand spends 11% of gdp on health care, the UK 12%.)

tes but it ignores the fact that patients must pay 33% of the cost. So the government pay 66% and the patients pays the rest. So Japan actually as a whole spends more. Depending on your research the UK can spend as little as 9%. Which has decreased from 10%.

These problems can only be resolved if the functioning of the entire monolithic service is reviewed from top to bottom. . The time for a rethink is long overdue.

I’m not sure about your experience but it has absolutely changed significantly. Nurses are doing doctors job now. Care assistant are now doing the jobs that registered nurses are doing. But more needs to be done. Government planning as revolved around NOT training nurses or docs but importing them cause it’s cheaper. Maybe you remember the enrolled nurses? Scrapped in favour of care assistants now their is a shortage of staff. Chemists are now doing the jobs doctors did. And is the first port of call.

GPs need to be increased but could be open later and maybe offer a weekend service.

A good starting point will be to challenge the BMA - the doctors' extreme-left union that puts confronting the government above patient care.

absolute rubbish. And I’m speaking from experience. The docs have never gone on strike. Never! They have always put patients at the top of their priorities and I for one regularly said “we can’t go on strike because the patients will suffer” but the kicker was, they were suffering because the nurses and docs said we can’t go on strike. Our working conditions cut, or working ours extended, our job responsibilities increased, our pay has been cut against and again and again, but we never went on strike. Doctors are regularly poached to work in Australia, Saudi Arabia and the US. And yes many hospitals in the UK have even opened up units in other countries where the can make money.

thr private sector has been used but which doctors get to work there? That right the very same consultants. The GP services absolutely do more preventative care than ever. But that requires more funding. Sadly the British public say they will pay more but they keep voting for tax cuts.

I do think it has to change but one system it should not emulate, and that is the American system. The worst of the worst. IMHO

More foreign doctors?

Really? Just check the names of doctors struck off for mal-practice or incompetence in 2021...

Vast majority not trained in UK. But training a doctor is expensive so the NHS hires lower quality foreign staff.

Abe234

Gareth Myles

>    (One fact: Japand spends 11% of gdp on health care, the UK 12%.)

> tes but it ignores the fact that patients must pay 33% of the cost. So the government pay 66% and the patients pays the rest. So Japan actually as a whole spends more. Depending on your research the UK can spend as little as 9%. Which has decreased from 10%.

People pay 30% for most working people. Retired people 20% with limits on monthly hospital charges and monthly medicine charges. People receiving welfare are exempt.

I am sure the World Bank statisticians are capable enough to include both government and private spending in the figures, so these differences in the systems will be accommodated. To see this, note that the same table for the US gives 19%. Add the private spending (much larger than government in the US) onto that and realise that the resulting figure makes no sense. The spending figures are clearly totals.

Other posters have identified further issues with the NHS. I agree with them all, and they add further confirmation that the funding the NHS gets is not delivering value.

The average basic pay for a junior doctor is £32,300. The figure of £14 per hour is a shocking distortion of the truth. (https://fullfact.org/health/bma-junior-doctors-hourly-pay/) After 3 years it is £43,900. Adding typical overtime pay to these figures increases them by 30%. Remember that these people are very much trainees yet still earn far above average UK incomes. The pay rises dramatically on qualification. A typical GP earns £98,000 and a consultant £102,000.

Are these rates too low? UK medical schools receive around 29,000 applicants per year for 9,500. The applicants are self-selected, meaning that most will be straight-A students with sufficient paper qualifications to get in. There is absolutely no evidence that the UK is not attracting enough student interest in the medical profession.

I stand by my main point: the UK spending on healthcare is in line with other similar nations but we just get very poor care. That is the problem that has to be fixed.

The strikers are just hurting ill and vulnerable people and damaging the NHS beyond repair. Brexit took sterling down 25%. Add the costs of extra border issues and everyone in the UK should be accepting being one third poorer. Expecting employers to cushion this with higher wages is infantile. If you want to blame anyone, blame those who voted for Brexit or the Tories who schemed it. Commit economic suicide with idiot policies and you become poorer. What part of that is so difficult for rail workers and medical staff to understand? The rest of us in business are having to deal with it, and we can't go begging to anyone for free cash to make up the difference. The UK is now a much poorer country. It will be for a generation, perhaps permanently. Stop pretending to be first world and demanding first world services for first world pay. That's over. Do what other people in badly run countries do and migrate to places with a higher standard of living.

Health policy is a devolved matter for the administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with the UK government overseeing England.

Junior doctors in Wales are due to walk out for 72 hours from January 15.

It is hard to avoid thinking that the whole NHS system is breaking down.

The latest evidence being that there is a serious lack of ambulance service. Compelling GPs in Wales to leave clinic to attend emergencies in the field. Your typical GP not being trained or experienced as a first responder.

Welsh GP Committee chair Dr. Gareth Oelmann was quoted as saying that "there is ‘chronic frailty’ across the NHS system," and he called for an end to "accepting this as business as usual." With general practice in Wales being "'on the brink of collapse’ with rural areas ‘some of the worst affected.’"

Not good.

I stand by my main point: the UK spending on healthcare is in line with other similar nations but we just get very poor care. That is the problem that has to be fixed.

The obvious reason is privatized hospitals within the NHS extracting profits.

A junior doctor is a qualified doctor who has not specialized. It is incorrect (and ignorant and insulting) to call them "trainees".

It's time to Kick out all the Indians from the UK including Sunak, then things may get better. They caused all the immigration problems in the first place.

Revenge for colonialism.

In general, I support Western countries kicking out both the Indians and the Chinese.

But the UK had it coming to them. Deal with it.

skeptical....

Welsh GP Committee chair Dr. Gareth Oelmann was quoted as saying that "there is ‘chronic frailty’ across the NHS system," and he called for an end to "accepting this as business as usual." With general practice in Wales being "'on the brink of collapse’ with rural areas ‘some of the worst affected.’"

In the summer the ambulance service in Wales actually advised people to have accidents BEFORE 11:00 am if they were to stand any chance of getting an ambulance to attend. No free beds in the hospitals meant that ambulances were unable to drop off patients.

And still many in the UK will drone the "Best health service in the world" mantra.

kohakuebisuToday  12:42 am JST

The obvious reason is privatized hospitals within the NHS extracting profits.

A junior doctor is a qualified doctor who has not specialized. It is incorrect (and ignorant and insulting) to call them "trainees".

Spot on. Private hospitals have one purpose and that is to extract as MUCH MONEY as possible from the patients at the lowest cost to the company to pay shareholders. This also means there comes a point where the private hospitals do NOT want to treat patients who are 1) expensive to treat 2) outcome is poor 3) cheaper to let the patient die or deny treatment because shareholders are much much more important. Some have a specific job to deny coverage or treatment to patients in the insurance industry. Knowing full well some patients will not appeal or can't pay. I'll point to the 22 year old who couldn't get his skin cancer treated and died because of a £75 test. The NHS has changed tremendously since the 1980s but as each new treatment comes out, more money is required. New cancer, new MS, and Dementia drugs cost millions, so that's gotta put strain on the service and sadly it often falls on the Cinderalla service that is always underfunded. Psychiatry.

Junior doctors are fully trained doctors who are still gaining experience, and they will then move up the ranks, then CHOOSE A speciality and after that, choose a SUB speciality within that specialised field. The NHS is not the best in the world, but then again that's all political BS. The Americans say theirs is the best in the world, as do the Germans and French, but I will say "We have the best medical care compared to many countries in the developing world. So yes, It is one of the best in the world....but not THEE BEST in the world. But let's remember the ambulances met their targets pre2008. The A&E met their targets pre-2008. Referrals, often met their targets pre-2008. So we might want to ask..what changed post-2008? The biggest reason is austerity. And why are there 10,000 nurse vacancies?

I worked in a private hospital, The London Clinic. Very expensive and only for the well-off but it provides the highest medical standards with highly qualified doctors and consultants. It caters to the every need of the patient. Those with the right health insurance can also attend.

Here is on fantastic reason the NHS also provides a service that’s cutting costs and creating value, not just in the UK but possibly for other counties. It’s ability to force drug prices to come down. Something Americans always complain about. It’s purchasing power can force them to get medicines cheaper than say the USA. The NHS also uses qualies to evaluate treatment.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67701940