The Junior Doctors Dispute

Under staffing and consequential over extending of Staff and resources has been the bane of the NHS for decades, Pete. Having to hire Agency Medical Staff at sometimes 4 times the cost of a member of staff is something some Hospitals are driven to. Don't forget it wasn't all that long ago when they were hiring Locums as normal practicefrom overseas for a single night, paying for the aeroplane ticket and travel expenses at a cost of anything from £3,OOO to £9.000 just for the night.

Most of the Managers are hired to meet Government targets rather than to actually fight for resources and more money. There's a saying about Managers [of which I was one], that the longer the title for a Manager's position the more useless he would have been. I once saw the title of a Hospital Manager consisted of 16 words...I kid you not!! Just as a note, I always kept my title as a "Trouble Shooter" short ...........there were some people who only used one word for me!!

 

I kind of agree depending on the work. When I worked on the family farm I was paid for those sorts of hours over the summer at harvest time. Now I come to think of it I wasn't paid the extra hours for other things like feeding, milking or checking the corn dryer (was done overnight) - it was just accepted that they had to be done and you can't just stop feeding livestock. Most of the work was very physical but didn't need much brain power so I don't recall it being a problem, even had time to get to the Pub most evenings.

Now I'm office based and working on IT Projects, sometimes when deadlines loom the managers want to throw hours at it to complete, but that plan never works, the brain slows down and actually you just get less productive and mistakes happen so that rework is needed. So I just can't see how Junior Drs can work long hours and make consistent logical decisions - I assume they are taking breaks to recharge their grey matter.

 

Nothing has changed, Pete. But nobody, including us, either cared or either knew about it, including the NHS management and the Government over the years. The NHS staff and Doctors have been complaining for decades and none of us were listening.......but now they are faced with a Government that is bent of austerity, stretching an under staffed and under resourced organisation to cover more hours and then imposing a contract, without recruiting more Nurses and Doctors to solve the problem, they are digging their heels and fighting back ........which of course is an controversial thing because we, the public are outraged because Doctors and Nurses are above those things aren't they????
Let's be honest, if you were lying in a bed in a Ward in a serious condition and a Junior Doctor came to you to make a decision about your treatment and/or an operation, and you knew that he was just finishing a 84 or more hour week, would you want him to be there??

 

As I said this is not about pay, nor are the Junior Doctors or the BMA saying that, but that is what the Government is using as a front. But let's take the pay aspect for an example. Let say, you take a job on, after taking a 5 year Degree, then doing 2 years "foundation" experience, then around another 5 years training, to make life changing/saving [or not] decisions, watching people in agony, distress, dying etc, every day, while knowing you're going to be working shifts "that finish when it finishes", an average of 84 hours or more a week, being on call, working unsociable hours, in a consistently under staffed and under resourced company?? Then, to top it off, the company says "Well, we won't increase the number of staff to ease load and improve conditions, invest more money, but we want a better service so forget the old contract [where you're already working hours way beyond the national average]. But we're going to stop paying you overtime rates, and make more of you work 24/7 so we can make the customers believe they're getting a better and safer service. Add to the fact that you wanted to be in the profession after all that training to do some good and also with luck become a Consultant over the years, but know that in a company such as the one you're in that's going to be either a very long time or perhaps impossible. I've been in some jobs, Pete, but I'd never dream about taking that one on.