First they came for the bankers...

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  • EKIMIKE
    EKIMIKE Posts: 2,232
    snailracer wrote:
    How about dentists? They thought NHS pay was too low, so they moved to private practice en masse. Now you can't find an NHS dentist for love nor money, and private treatment is much more expensive. If you reduce doctors' pay to below market rates, I would expect the same thing to happen.

    How "worthy" a job is has little to do with how much pay goes with it, the market dictates the pay.

    Firstly i'd argue the strength of Doctors' unions has alot to do with their pay going up not 'the market'

    And secondly, seeing how many Doctors work privately and for the NHS at the same time, it seems no matter how much the NHS pays them, they will still practice privately as well.

    And yes, the pay information on the NHS site is very conservative. Consultants can often earn 200K+ p.a. I certainly don't agree with these comments that GP's 'just sit in an office' but you have to look at it with a degree of relativity and see that Nurses, Midwives, Paramedics e.t.c are getting a bit of a shoddy deal.

    As for how much insurance they have to take out, i'm guessing here but surely that's to do with the vast sums of money they get paid and thus they are eminently sue-able individuals.

    Anyway it's an tough point of debate and it's hard to see a workable solution but my view is that there needs to be reform but much like a caricature of general society it'll be the poor who get squeezed the most i.e. the lower earners will be doing more to get their ever lower wages.
    Canyon Endurace CF 2014 | Canyon Ultimate CF 2010
  • bails87
    bails87 Posts: 12,998
    So then, good doctors or cheap doctors? :lol:
    MTB/CX

    "As I said last time, it won't happen again."
  • snailracer
    snailracer Posts: 968
    EKIMIKE wrote:
    snailracer wrote:
    How about dentists? They thought NHS pay was too low, so they moved to private practice en masse. Now you can't find an NHS dentist for love nor money, and private treatment is much more expensive. If you reduce doctors' pay to below market rates, I would expect the same thing to happen.

    How "worthy" a job is has little to do with how much pay goes with it, the market dictates the pay.

    Firstly i'd argue the strength of Doctors' unions has alot to do with their pay going up not 'the market'...

    Now if you reran history with the dentists more strongly unionised, what do you think would have happened?

    The dentists pay went WAY up when they left the NHS and became private - no union required.
  • Tom Butcher
    Tom Butcher Posts: 3,830
    bails87 wrote:
    So then, good doctors or cheap doctors? :lol:

    You may as well say good bankers or cheap bankers. Doctors are not better doctors because they have had massive increases in pay in recent years.

    They are overpaid - obviously the comment about them sitting in an office telling people to rest is tongue in cheek but there's an element of truth to it - even GPs admit the deal they got was silly money - see the first page of this thread. When many thousands of public sector workers are losing their jobs or getting their already limited pay frozen and conditions axed it's about time the pay packets of doctors came under the spotlight. Pay them less and if they don't want to do it train more that do.
    it's a hard life if you don't weaken.
  • Stick8267
    Stick8267 Posts: 154
    Important to get a few facts straight!

    It is almost impossible to earn £200k plus a year as a consultant without additional waiting list supplements, I.e. Ad hoc overtime. A top salary plus platinum (!) bonus might earn £180k but you have to get to be President of a Royal College or equivalent to get this and there are precious few who have a chance. The vast majority are earning less than £100k a year.

    We pay higher insurance premiums because we are liable at a personal level, nurses are not. Sure plenty of nurses save lives but this means, in reality, they hold the situation while calling for help which takes the form of a doctor. In the NHS it is the hospital that is sued but in the private sector it is the individual, that's why my wife's premiums are over £50k a year! (Obstetrician)

    Now some reality.

    It would be impossible to provide quality health care without nurses or midwives. It is a team game. However, you get paid for how hard your job is, how long the training is, how much responsibility you have and how good your personal or union led negotiations are. Nurses have a crap union, doctors have a very good one.

    I don't think we are overpaid given the 15 years of training and exams I have gone through and the responsibility I carry. Nurses, however, are not paid enough and are not recognised by the NHS or DH for the value they deliver.
  • Pigtail
    Pigtail Posts: 424
    The biggest problem for nurses getting better paid is that there are far too many of them.

    Even a modest payrise for them comes to a huge amount of money across the whole NHS.

    I've never been convinced that nurses can't be recruited because of low salary. I think they can't be recruited because of poor conditions - treated badly, awkward shifts, not enough supplies and constantly trying to plug gaps caused by lack of staff.

    Aren't UK Doctors pretty much the highest paid in Europe?

    How does that work as regards value for money?
  • markmod
    markmod Posts: 501
    Hi I have been following this discussion, I have only my point to add, take it how you may.

    When a GP with the help of an excellent Consultant and fantastic nurses actually save your life it makes you feel totally different about how much they are paid.

    I wouldn't be here now without the vigilance of my GP, who when I went to see him with a sore throat, took one look and said he was unhappy with my tonsil. I saw a consultant a week later who decided that the tonsil should be removed asap, and a week after that I was diagnosed with throat cancer.

    The treatment (chemo and radio therapy) and care I received, (and stil receiving now physiotherapy and checkup mri scans etc) was and is second to none on the NHS. If I had paid privately for this I don't know how they would have improved on the quality of service I had received.

    Consultants, GPs and Doctors paid too much... I don't think so and neither would you... Think about it... :D
  • Tom Butcher
    Tom Butcher Posts: 3,830
    Stick8267 wrote:
    Important to get a few facts straight!

    It is almost impossible to earn £200k plus a year as a consultant without additional waiting list supplements, I.e. Ad hoc overtime. A top salary plus platinum (!) bonus might earn £180k but you have to get to be President of a Royal College or equivalent to get this and there are precious few who have a chance. The vast majority are earning less than £100k a year.

    There are 20 consultants within Derby Hospitals NHS Trust on over 200k a year - I don't know if that includes private work but I assume not. The top salary paid is 290k. There are 7 more in Derbyshire County NHS on over 200k - so these while above average are hardly exceptional. The average GP earns 110k a year in the UK so I doubt the vast majority of consultants are on under 100k.

    Don't get me wrong - I agree doctors deserve a good salary, they should have a good degree of autonomy and they do a difficult job and usually do it well (though I could tell a few horror stories I don't pretend they are typical). If they actually earned the figures you say then I wouldn't have a problem - but the figures I've given (which are from the local paper obtained under the freedom of information act) suggest they actually earn a lot more. 65-70k for a GP, 100k for a top experienced consultant - no problem - average 110k a year for a GP, up to 290k for a consultant - way too much imo.
    it's a hard life if you don't weaken.
  • mrushton
    mrushton Posts: 5,182
    Why not give up your jobs and apply to Medical or Dental School? Many Paramedics do as their max.ceiling is (I think) £30k. Now you've given your job up,you can do the 5 years+ training and then become a GP or go for a Consultancy. Given the fact you will be earning anywhere from £100k > £200k+ you should have your debts covered in no time. i can't believe people think a GP just sits in a chair dishing out prescriptions. You may have to tell someone they have weeks to live,that there is a problem with their unborn child etc. I've worked in the NHS and the academic side and I know some of them get a lot of money but as has been pointed out, they take on certain responsibilities and if you were diagnosed with eg a brain tumour would you ask the Consultant Neurosurgeon if he/she was perhaps overpaid or would you think 'get this out of my head now'
    You could argue that airline pilots are overpaid as all they do is fill in some paperwork,put the waypoints into the flight computer and then sit back but if they have to do the pilot thing for real I for one am not going to worry about his/her salary just 'keep this up in the air please'
    M.Rushton
  • Tom Butcher
    Tom Butcher Posts: 3,830
    Because I'm nearly 43, have 3 kids and only one science A level and I believe they like at least a couple of sciences - but yes having worked in the NHS myself I do think it was a missed opportunity.

    I don't know what airline pilots earn but if you want to start a thread about it maybe I'll contribute.
    it's a hard life if you don't weaken.
  • Stick8267
    Stick8267 Posts: 154
    The most a consultant can earn working a standard 40 hour week is £100 486 on to which can be added an additional award or bonus of £75 796. For every additional 4 hours contracted this person would earn an additional £10 000. So to earn £290 000 from their contracted hours (I.e. excluding ad hoc overtime) the consultant would have to work 85 hours a week. Derby may well be paying lots for waiting list initiative work at the weekend which is effectively the consultant doing private work (admittedly paid much less than in the private sector) for the NHS. It won't include private work outside the NHS as this is a personal matter and not subject to the FOI.

    It is always possible to find small numbers of people milking the system and I agree that they are overpaid, especially the bonus system which is an outrageous waste of tax pounds. Remember there are thousands of consultants in the country and their average pay is less than the GP's.
  • TuckerUK
    TuckerUK Posts: 369
    Stick8267 wrote:
    The NHS is rapidly turning in to a very poor employer and there are plenty of us looking to get out!

    My partner has just started working for the NHS, after working nearly 20 years in the private sector.

    She cannot get over how incredibly inefficient the NHS is (but I think this goes for all public sector organisations). A private company would go bust within the first year if it was run as badly as the NHS.

    My mother was a school bursar; she had similar horror stories to tell about the state education system.

    Edit: P.S. Not for one second am I knocking all the very hard working and skilled medical staff out there. What ever they earn, I'm sure they deserve it.
    "Coming through..."
  • mrushton
    mrushton Posts: 5,182
    Re the airline pilots, I think it depends on the airline but the big companies pay more but are you really going to cut a few quid off the budget when you are handing the keys to eg a 747 over. Someone I work with has a brother who flies for Thomson. The pilots salary was apparently £100k but that might include flight pay (or this may be supplemental) which comes in when the wheels leave thge ground and stops when the plane touches down. Aircrew are also regulated to the number of hours flown or hanging about if delayed, annual medicals and annual requalification which they have to pass.

    Re public sector - I work in it and I have to agree that if the place I work was run as a business it would be shut pretty quick. There are a lot of people here on £50k+ and who are given (or believe they should be given) IPhone4s,MacBooks,bigger monitors etc because they should!
    M.Rushton
  • snailracer
    snailracer Posts: 968
    TuckerUK wrote:
    ...
    My partner has just started working for the NHS, after working nearly 20 years in the private sector.

    She cannot get over how incredibly inefficient the NHS is (but I think this goes for all public sector organisations). A private company would go bust within the first year if it was run as badly as the NHS...
    I spent 7 years living and working in the USA, where most healthcare is private. They pay twice as much as we do here in the UK and the treatment provided, in my experience, is not as good as that provided by the NHS, DESPITE the fact that they can "cherry pick" what they will pay for, and who they cover - just like the private healthcare providers do in the UK.

    I am sure the NHS is inefficient, but I am not convinced the private sector would better if it was scaled up to the size and comprehensive coverage of the NHS.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,660
    snailracer wrote:
    I am sure the NHS is inefficient, but I am not convinced the private sector would better if it was scaled up to the size of the NHS.

    Quite.

    It'd be inefficient in different ways, but inefficient nonetheless.


    The solution to solving inefficiency is better management, not changing the type of sector it is.
    _
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,689
    EKIMIKE wrote:
    And i'd also be wary of this idea that Consultants get paid so much more because they take it on when the shoot hits the fan. Obviously there is no doubt they do but so do Nurses and Midwives.

    Again, it's anecdotal so make of it what you will but my mother has resuscitated numerous people, and babies as a nurse and then as a midwife. There's plenty of life saving which goes on outside of the operating theatre too.

    Just to clarify again, i'm not advocating equal pay between doctors (consultants, registrars, GP's e.t.c) nurses and midwives but there gap should be smaller. I don't think Doctors are greedy or lazy. They just get paid too much in relation to their fellow professionals.

    Surely it is more a case that the nurses are underpaid (especially as they have taken on more of a 'medical' role than a 'caring' role in the last decade or two? I would say that doctors (once they have finished training) get a fairly fair wage whilst nurses, paramedics and doctors in training are paid less than they should be. The biggest inequality in my opinion is the pay of non-medical management staff compared to nurses, paramedics etc.

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