Doctors Strike

[roachcoach]

They've been stamping their feet for years and Governments past and present have had time and man power to think of a solution and yet haven't. Doctors are doctors not economists. That's the Government's job which incidently involves changing things even before the recession took hold years ago

Correct because the government is too fearful of doing what is necessary and too busy doing what will be popular.

Doctors/teachers etc don't do it for the money and people can abuse (and have in the past) the crap out of this.

I was going to edit but might as well add here, it's government spending that's fubar, but no government would last a month if they did what needed to be done. Just look at the furore over a proposed benefit cap.

As things sit, there's no cash and the great british public will not stand for the necessary actions required for that situation to change.

[csgohan4]

But they could be sustainable, if we started taking the money from the people we are supposed to. Doctors have a dam right to stamp their feet right now. They didn't start this mess and shouldn't take the brunt for it.

Seems that we can "reform" everything in this country right now...apart from Westminster.

Don't forget that the pensions were already renegotiated in 2008. They are trying to rewrite the contract again.

Oh....and about that 50p tax rate cut.....is there anyone apart from the rich this government hasn't managed to piss off?

The bankers bonus tax has been abolished, profits from foreign subsidiaries are exempt from tax (IIRC) and corporation tax has been reduced.

That's sustainability right there.

Couldn't have said it any better.

Would this Thread have had as much publicity, frustration or rather in some posters cases, anger if it was any other profession. Just because you don't earn nor are doctors doesn't mean they don't have a right to refuse to be screwed

[csgohan4]

Maybe,we need to expect a lower quality of service in the future in hospitals now,unless we are willing to pay extra in private healthcare!!

Unfortunately the Last Labour government wanted to introduce more and the Public, or rather the media cum Tabloids went into uproar about a second class service and how this will affect the NHS. In fact they were poorly informed and selfish in trying to sell papers.

if you can afford better service why not? aka Private medical insurance and implenting this into the NHS is a brilliant idea. More money for equipment and staff and waiting lists cut down as they are not joining the general queue.

Everyone gets a basic service, but to be seen quicker is a service which if you can afford you get. It's like you can afford a GTX 690 but everyone else has a GTX 580, why should we see both parties any less or more. You have the money good for you. Unless you shove in our facies we won't care, it's your money. Whether you need it is another thing.

[roachcoach]

But they could be sustainable, if we started taking the money from the people we are supposed to. Doctors have a dam right to stamp their feet right now. They didn't start this mess and shouldn't take the brunt for it.

Why should they be immune? Are you saying they're more important than teachers? Than office staff? Than bin men? Where do you draw that line eh? That's a real hard path to walk down.

I'm not posting here saying that doctors don't deserve it, I thought I'd already alluded strongly enough to that. They do in my eyes, but so do a freakin' lot of people and I'm not going to attempt to draw the line about the who and the what is 'worthy'. Everyone (pretty much) is feeling the pain from this, I'm not sure given groups should be granted immunity at the expense of everyone else.

Oh....and about that 50p tax rate cut.....is there anyone apart from the rich this government hasn't managed to piss off?

Didn't that bring in LESS money than the old one? Therefore changing it, whilst politically dangerous was fiscally sensible...see my post above, the public wont allow them too do what needs to be done. You talked about cutting big business a break and yet the public went nuts about this 'pasty tax' nonsense. We refuse to even pay more for goddamned junk food/tax junk food peddling companies whilst the balance sheet haemorrhages money.

The bankers bonus tax has been abolished, profits from foreign subsidiaries are exempt from tax (IIRC) and corporation tax has been reduced.

That's sustainability right there.

Can't just come from that angle though, we spend almost as much on welfare alone as we do on the NHS.


Note: I'm not 'going after welfare' here, simply stating that its all part of a much bigger issue, one we as a nation are not accepting any meaningful way to deal with.

It's like the national damned motto is: It's all everyone elses fault and everyone else needs to pay for it except me.

[csgohan4]

Correct because the government is too fearful of doing what is necessary and too busy doing what will be popular.

Doctors/teachers etc don't do it for the money and people can abuse (and have in the past) the crap out of this.

I was going to edit but might as well add here, it's government spending that's fubar, but no government would last a month if they did what needed to be done. Just look at the furore over a proposed benefit cap.

As things sit, there's no cash and the great british public will not stand for the necessary actions required for that situation to change.

Unfortunately a sad reality. Governments wouldn't last if they did what was detrimental to voter support. Real shame and perhaps selfish from voters. I don't mind Doctors having their Pensions changed, but the fact this done without meaningful consultation and changed BEFORE recessions is unforgiveable and truly unfair when others have had more success. They should as Agent has stated to find ways of cutting the excess fat and reaping the Corporations of repeated Tax evasions.

[csgohan4]

Why should they be immune? Are you saying they're more important than teachers? Than office staff? Than bin men? Where do you draw that line eh? That's a real hard path to walk down.

I'm not posting here saying that doctors don't deserve it, I thought I'd already alluded strongly enough to that. They do in my eyes, but so do a freakin' lot of people and I'm not going to attempt to draw the line about the who and the what is 'worthy'. Everyone (pretty much) is feeling the pain from this, I'm not sure given groups should be granted immunity at the expense of everyone else.

Noone is indeed immune from the recession and I agree everyone has to share the pain. But what I disagree is, why do they have to have pain when before the banking crisis happened and again recently which changes everything SIGNIFICANTLY in regards to pensions.

You also forget there has been a PAY FREEZE for the last few years for senior medical staff, further blunting their pension potential. They are also in pain.

Put in the equation Medical staff do not generally strike nor done so since 1970's for fairer pay +/- pensions. The other civil servants can strike and they get some success, what about the medical profession? when was the last time you heard them strike?

I think it's much 'fairer' as you would put it to save the red tape and tax evaders before making the front line medical staff even more poorer and less apprecicated of their work further worsening morale

[peterb]

Guys, an emotive subject, and therefore some comments may be a little 'robust'! Please think before you post.

As always, we appreciate reported posts, but having reported a post, further comment by the reporter on the post is NOT required. The final arbiters will be the moderation/admin teamn and HEXUS staff.

[TheAnimus]

They didn't start this mess and shouldn't take the brunt for it.

But who did 'start this mess'? The issue of our over spending, both public and private.

Oh....and about that 50p tax rate cut.....is there anyone apart from the rich this government hasn't managed to piss off?

But it was brought in as only a temporary tax.

The bankers bonus tax has been abolished, profits from foreign subsidiaries are exempt from tax (IIRC) and corporation tax has been reduced.

The bankers bonus tax was childishly political, the vast majority of 'bankers' (what is a banker, anyone who works in Investment Banking?) had absolutely nothing to do with the financial collapse, why heavily tax them?

As for cutting Corperation Tax that is a very complex issue, because what is it taxing to begin with? It's kinda complicated. Given that we are in a 'credit crunch' the last thing we want to do is anything that discourages foreign money coming in to companies based in the UK. The main issue is that corporation tax on very large firms doesn't work very well, just look at Google or Amazon, they all profit for being in the UK market but are based outside.

The one that I just don't understand is why we have differen't tax on dividends vs income! I can't understand how money from an investment is taxed less than money which is earned from a job.

The issue is tax is a very emotive one, and people start behaving emotionally one of the classics is to brand people as "bankers, the top 1%" or "scroungers". The main issue for me is its damned confusing, I mean I've made sooo many mistakes.....

[MaddAussie]

Guys, I'm at work at the moment and cant post a proper reply to all the points.

I was extremely annoyed as I'd just taken the call form the consultants secretary and may have not come across as I wanted. I will try to post when I get home, if I feel upto it but I currently have another kidney infection which the procedure I was going to have should help to reduce if not eliminate.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

We can see where poorer pay left the dental service -it went private.

The problem is though if you get to that level with so much hard work,altruism only gets you so far. When you come to think about it,some of these people are among the most qualified in our country,and a number of consultants are world experts in the field. People take this for granted and you cannot just paying them a relative pittance too.

I have criticised the NHS at times too,but I have seen the flip-side in a poor country myself too,where even simple operations can bankrupt a family and if you have a long term illness,it is a major financial burden too. The problem is like you highlighted,the public expects private service for public levels of funding and pay.

At some point,why should many doctors bother to get into the NHS directly?? They might end up going private or joining private firms which get sub-contracted to the NHS,with either greater cost to the public,or lower overall service or flexilbility.

This is what is going to happen IMHO,in the future with the NHS becoming more and more privatised.

Maybe,we need to expect a lower quality of service in the future in hospitals now,unless we are willing to pay extra in private healthcare!!

Unfortunately the Last Labour government wanted to introduce more and the Public, or rather the media cum Tabloids went into uproar about a second class service and how this will affect the NHS. In fact they were poorly informed and selfish in trying to sell papers.

if you can afford better service why not? aka Private medical insurance and implenting this into the NHS is a brilliant idea. More money for equipment and staff and waiting lists cut down as they are not joining the general queue.

Everyone gets a basic service, but to be seen quicker is a service which if you can afford you get. It's like you can afford a GTX 690 but everyone else has a GTX 580, why should we see both parties any less or more. You have the money good for you. Unless you shove in our facies we won't care, it's your money. Whether you need it is another thing.

No,I didn't mean what you are talking about. I meant that for anything like a large operation you might have to have private insurance,unless you want to wait something like a year or so. The problem is that if the NHS depends more on more from contributions from private healthcare,the costs of the premiums will also go up and up. If the system was implemented on the basis of the severiority of the illness,it would be one thing. However,I don't see this happening in the UK. It will be literally - you pay more and get preferential treatment whether or not you are not some poorer person with no insurance needs treatment quicker.

People also would expect it. Look in universities now - students expect to pass because they are paying higher fees even if they are not capable enough to pass in the first place.

You really need to see how it is in a poorer country. I have. That country,had a reasonable standard of public healthcare(at least by the standards of the region),but people had to wait so long even for basic operations,they had to literally ask for donations in the paper. If they didn't they would have died,and people did die.

Private hospitals OTH,were far better,and my family were well off enough to be able to use them.

[csgohan4]

But who did 'start this mess'? The issue of our over spending, both public and private.But it was brought in as only a temporary tax.
The bankers bonus tax was childishly political, the vast majority of 'bankers' (what is a banker, anyone who works in Investment Banking?) had absolutely nothing to do with the financial collapse, why heavily tax them?

As for cutting Corperation Tax that is a very complex issue, because what is it taxing to begin with? It's kinda complicated. Given that we are in a 'credit crunch' the last thing we want to do is anything that discourages foreign money coming in to companies based in the UK. The main issue is that corporation tax on very large firms doesn't work very well, just look at Google or Amazon, they all profit for being in the UK market but are based outside.

The one that I just don't understand is why we have differen't tax on dividends vs income! I can't understand how money from an investment is taxed less than money which is earned from a job.

The issue is tax is a very emotive one, and people start behaving emotionally one of the classics is to brand people as "bankers, the top 1%" or "scroungers". The main issue for me is its damned confusing, I mean I've made sooo many mistakes.....

The 50 percent tax brought less money, but nether the less money for the Government. You also have to consider can you trust what they say in what they say, they may have alterior motive in protecting their own pay package.

In terms of recession, isn't it the Sub prime mortgages, especially in the United States and bad debt coupled with high spending as prevalent in Greece make things worse, therefore greed is ultimate problem, more so for high risk jobs like Bankers who deal with OTHER people's money

[Saracen]

The doctors scheme actually makes the government money. i.e. the money gets more money from doctors than is paid into the scheme....

And that, I'm afraid, is typical misunderstanding of the problem.

The whole point about a pension fund is that contributions are paid now and benefits paid out are paid later.

Given the significant increase in NHS staff levels over the last decade or so, of course more money is going in than out, now. More people are paying in. The problem is that on current figures, when all those benefits start being paid out, there is a whopping great shortfall.

The government is NOT making money from the current scheme. It is merely a cash flow thing, whereas the problem is with the balance sheet, years into the future, when the situation reverses and all those extra people that are currently paying in represent a huge increase in those drawing out.

Like it or not, the situation with NHS pensions is not sustainable. Unless things are changed now, and changed significantly, the time is going to come when the only way to continue paying NHS pensions is going to be massive tax-payer contributions, because the NHS fund is of the type where the taxpayer picks up the deficit.

Now personally, I don't care one way or the other, because at my age, I won't be here when this comes home to roost, but come home it will. And it'll be all your kids, or perhaps you if you're younger than me (and most of you are) that will be paying tax to fund this.

And then, in 20 or 30 years, the government will have a real problem. Of the funding they have for the NHS, do they fund medical care for current tax-payers or pensions for retired doctors? Because that is what we're currently arguing about.

And that's why I think this action by doctors is utterly disgraceful, venal, contemptible and selfish in the extreme.

Yes, many of them work long hours, and do a hard, stressful and valuable job. And, generally, are well-paid for it. But, through no fault of their own, but none of the tax-payer of the future either we all all living longer, and the current scheme is simply not sustainable.

Even after the proposed changes, they will still have a very good scheme, paying out considerably more in pension that the vast majority of the people that will be paying taxes for it earn in salary.

This is not about what they pay in now versus what they get out now. It's not about a "surplus" because that absolutely misses the point. It's about what happens in decades to come.

[roachcoach]

Noone is indeed immune from the recession and I agree everyone has to share the pain. But what I disagree is, why do they have to have pain when before the banking crisis happened and again recently which changes everything SIGNIFICANTLY in regards to pensions.

You also forget there has been a PAY FREEZE for the last few years for senior medical staff, further blunting their pension potential. They are also in pain.

Put in the equation Medical staff do not generally strike nor done so since 1970's for fairer pay +/- pensions. The other civil servants can strike and they get some success, what about the medical profession? when was the last time you heard them strike?

I think it's much 'fairer' as you would put it to save the red tape and tax evaders before making the front line medical staff even more poorer and less apprecicated of their work further worsening morale

In the main I agree, the troublesome part is it's not medical staff being hit in isolation, it's pretty sweeping across the public sector. They may be being disproportionately hit, I'm not going to pretend to have done the analysis and if so then it should be addressed.

As I say, the issue is a basic one (income < expenditure) but the only viable solution (cust spending, increase revenue) are not being accepted by anyone it might affect in the process (i.e. most people).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Another thing - if people increasing need to start paying for health insurance,why not raise tax or VAT a bit more? People get so worked up about small increases in taxation and VAT and then would pay more to get private healthcare??

[Agent]

Why should they be immune?

I'm not suggesting they should be totally immune, but rather that in this situation, this should not be happening. Certainly not when they were already renegotiated in 2008.

Are you saying they're more important than teachers?

Than office staff? Than bin men? Where do you draw that line eh? That's a real hard path to walk down.

I agree to a certain level. I wouldn't want to get into classifying the 'worthiness' of workers in their role either.
But...When it comes to someone that is spending years of their life to save the lives of others, then yeah, I'd say they'd come pretty much top of any list I could imagine.

I'm not posting here saying that doctors don't deserve it, I thought I'd already alluded strongly enough to that. They do in my eyes, but so do a freakin' lot of people and I'm not going to attempt to draw the line about the who and the what is 'worthy'. Everyone (pretty much) is feeling the pain from this, I'm not sure given groups should be granted immunity at the expense of everyone else.

But we're not talking about immunity here - again, they already renegotiated in 2008, with zero strikes and no fuss. The public wasn't even aware it happened for the most part. We're talking about an unfair deal in relation to working hours and conditions, not that they should be immune to reform.

Didn't that bring in LESS money than the old one? Therefore changing it, whilst politically dangerous was fiscally sensible...see my post above, the public wont allow them too do what needs to be done.

AFAIK, this is only true because of the tax avoidance. The guardian says: "Osborne said the 50p rate had distorted the economy by encouraging tax avoidance, and cutting it to 45p would only cost the exchequer £100m."

Which is fair enough, but they could have looked at just stopping the tax avoidance.

I don't know about you, but I can't even think of a single way I could avoid paying tax off the top of my head. Claiming tax avoidance had made it not fit for purpose seems a bit dumb from my POV.

Can't just come from that angle though, we spend almost as much on welfare alone as we do on the NHS.


Note: I'm not 'going after welfare' here, simply stating that its all part of a much bigger issue, one we as a nation are not accepting any meaningful way to deal with.

Why can't we come at it from that angle? Where is the negative is saying that X amount of cash could come from the issues I listed and pump them into the NHS?

It's like the national damned motto is: It's all everyone elses fault and everyone else needs to pay for it except me.

I prefer: Let's make those who are at fault pay first (you know, like 6 Billion in tax avoidance).

[badass]

Let me explain some of the reasoning behind the suggestion the OP uses private medical insurance.
The strike is only on non urgent care. Anything urgent is excluded therefore if the OP has been bumped it must be non urgent care. Essentially they are ranting about an inconvenience because a very hard working group who daily go so far above and beyond that which is required of them just to help patients is excersizing their right to do something about it.

Secondly, my issue with the rant is that they fixated on the average doctors pension income and the post suggests that since it is a good income, they have no right to complain. Reading between the lines I suspect the OP doesn't believe they will get such a good pension income themselves.

That smacks of envy, pure and simple.

SO the OP is complaining about something that is nothing more than an inconvenience and they wouldn't have been inconvenienced if they had private cover.
Their attitude comes across of one where because doctors get a more pension income than them, they should just put up with whatever is thrown their way and most certainly should not dare inconvenience anyone.

Hence my suggestion that if the OP doesn't like the service, they can get private treatment and if they can't afford it they should change their personal situation so they can.

Not everyone is as accademically gifted as some people are so therefore some people find it easy to get into the high paid jobs, so some of us sadly have to accept NHS treatment.

Indeed. Thank goodness for the NHS and it's principle of "free at the point of need"

badass .. pls refrain from personal attacks, however so typed

I apologise to the OP for that although you have to admit it was hardly a scathing attack.

Calm down. These people have dedicated their entire lives to helping others, working well over normal hours compared to a lot of people and have spent years training to be able to offer you that operation.

Don't complain about them so easily.

What do you do for a living?
Do you save lives? Are you on a list where you could be called at any moment to go into work and save someone's life? Did you spend years at University and in training to be able to save someone's life? Do you have idea (no, seriously) about the hours doctors need to do? Do you have any comprehension of the level of responsibility that you take on as a medical doctor?

It's one hell of a stressful job.

I seriously need to applaud the media for this though. In the last few years they have turned Doctors, Teachers and Emergency service workers into public enemy number one.

What about mass banking corruption? Members of government being referred or referring themselves to the parliamentary committee? Insane corruption with anything involving oil?
Nar....let's not use our brains here...lets complain about the people trying to keep us alive

Barmy.

100% agreed on every point.

This post doesn't reflect the usual standard of your contributions. You are grinding a personal axe and it has clouded your judgement.

Doctors do "earn a fair whack" with the emphasis on the word "earn". Think about it; Doctors are amongst the most rational, intelligent, hard-working, public-spirited contributors you will find in this Country (or anywhere for that matter) and yet they feel their only remaining option is to strike? Something is desperately wrong and it isn't the attitude of Doctors.

Noone requiring urgent treatment will be affected by the strike; that pledge has been made by the very people you're taking a swipe at. Meanwhile, the true villains, as mentioned already in this thread, have manipulated the talking point away from their mis-deeds.

Just how much longer will we be this gullible?

As above, 100% agreed.




However I do think the strike has been done in the stupidest way possible. The doctors will just end up working even longer hours to clear up the backlog created by this. They should go on a "pointless paperwork strike"
That will hit them where it hurts and not adversely affect patient care.