pay rises

Doctors on the gravy train. With strikes.

£35,000 pay rise wanted this year.!!!

We will pay this and it will keep inflation high for everyone.

Not helping the lower  paid and pensioners who cannot strike.

Micky

Look at buying power, how many minutes/ hours work does it take to buy a pint of milk, tank of diesel, heat the house for a day etc. Purchasing power has reduced for all of us over past five years meaning a reduction in standard of living, 

Public sector pay tends to slip behind private sector over several years, then get situation we are in now with workers, from admin staff to train drivers to consultants demanding the disparity is addressed. Eventually adjustments get made and the cycle begins again.

Current top salary for consultant is £108k, after 12 to 15 years of training. They provide cover 24/7, 365 days a year. Based on 37.5 hour week, which is vast underestimate of their working week thus is about £55 per hour,  they don't get shift enhancement fot nights or weekends and no overtime payment.

In comparison local moho dealer charges over £70 per hour for technician time, as does my garage.  How much do you get charged by plumber etc.

Not defending consultant demands, just setting some context.

Once again we see the UK media giving half the story or slanting the truth. I heard a doctor saying on BBC this morning that he could earn twice as much by moving to Canada or Australia and therefore the UK was lagging behind in terms of salary
I can only speak for Canada and specifically BC but yes it is true my doctor friends there earn huge amounts of money but the system is completely different and you can't compare their costs. My SiL who is a senior doctor has to pay all his overheads and admin costs out of that salary.
It is worse than the UK to get a family doctor because there are just not enough of them, many people rely on walk in clinics with no appointments so you may wait minutes or you may get turned away.
His work load is enormous and maybe worse than the UK.
I employed many airline crews in my last business and all were bonded for a number of years so if we trained them they had to stay and if this was done with doctors then they could not clear off overseas immediately after training.
It is hard to compare public sector pay to private sector, in my case I admit in some years I could earn a lot of money but others when the business did not so well I could earn virtually nothing. I also had to put my house on the line which must deserve some compensation.
100k is not an exceptional salary these days, do senior doctors deserve more, it surely depends on individual circumstances. I don't have enough knowledge to take a view of the UK system.
The demands are generally media hyped and therefore become the trend, what happened to quiet negotiations It has all become a bit of a mess and of course vast numbers from different sectors will jump on the bandwagon, inflation will continue to rise and interest rates with it completing the vicious circle.

Follow up.
Just read today in DT  letters page.
Consultants to strike.
£120,000 basic + up to £40,000  for awards.
20% pension contribution, no top limit.
Oh 
Private referral work on top.!!!!!

Definitely  not poorly paid. 

Micky

Yeh, DT - friend of employees everywhere.
How much do you suppose senior journalists and newspaper owners earn for doing far less? 
A great many Consultants, such as anaesthetists, and Paediatricians don’t do much privately. The awards scheme is stopped as it was. It was to reward extra work or experience. Now it lasts for only 3 years, and to get it again you need to jump through a new hoop. The Pension scheme, as many many workers now find, has been watered down considerably for new staff.
I know a recently retired couple, one from a bank, the other from private school whose company half pay pensions equal a consultants full pay. 
Would the folk thinking that NHS pay should be cut year on year please say how much they consider the people who have already extended both my own and my wife’s life by 20 years like to say how much they think a Consultant is worth, or why, with their intelligence and diligence they should earn less than a tenth of Jeremy Vine’s pay.

Maybe Consultants would have been better off using their brains to conn PPE contracts out of friendly Cabinet Ministers that cost £billions and were never delivered, and which the DT never condemned much.

I touch a nerve i think.
Many people earn more. Good luck to them.
This is striking to stop people being saved.!!
Not poorly paid.
I was in the forces and was poorly paid. Only 24 years.
No striking, unlimited overtime not paid.!!
Hope they can live with the memories.

Micky

OK Micky, How much should Consultants be paid then? Anyone can gripe and be jealous. Maybe it suits the Telegraph to talk down the NHS wages to make it more profitable when it is privatised. Stick to motor homes for a topic you actually have first hand experience of.

PeterM