#thenhs

This is written by Tony, my mate who is a doctor: qualified nearly 22 years, junior doctor of 11 years and consultant of 10 years........

My wife asked me to summarise the junior doctor contract issues so she can explain them to her friends on Facebook who don't work in healthcare without too much jargon. Please have a look at this and set me straight on any issues/mistakes. I wouldn't want to be accused of lying like certain ministers we know and love.

Let's set some issues straight:

*The NHS is running out of money!* -we spend less than most western countries yet are told we must cut back even more. What we get for that money at the moment is fantastic value but we are told we need to spend even less. At the moment all the money goes to patient care. If the NHS is privatised some of that cash will go to profits and shareholders meaning less money for patient care. It's that simple. If we are all happy with that then fair enough but I feel uncomfortable having a health secretary who was an author of a book on privatising the NHS.

*More work for less pay* - The new contract is not doctors asking for more money or less work. It's the government telling them many will work longer hours for less pay. Who in their right mind would sign up for that?

*Seven day services* - I've been a doctor for almost 22 years and have worked nights and weekends (as well as, not instead of daytime work) during that time. I've missed Christmases, Birthdays, anniversaries, parties and every other type of thing I like doing in my spare time. Now the government wants to tell me the NHS isn't 24/7 which is bullshit. I have a lot of explaining to do to my wife if I haven't been working all these years. What the gov mean is that they want all services 7 days a week when emergency work has always been 7 days. Doctors have even agreed that 7 day services are the way forward BUT if you want doctors to work the weekend you either need more of them overall or some to take days off during the week. This is robbing Peter to pay Paul as you can't do as much work during the week any more. Doctors don't work alone they are part of a huge team of nurses, physios, porters, radiographers, pharmacists, ward clerks and everyone else needed to keep the hospital working. If you want things to work the same as during the week you need all these people as well.

*The government says doctors are getting a pay rise!* -Politicians, don't you love them? Often they choose their words carefully to hide the truth. Doctors get paid for their "day job" as well as 'on call' emergency work which is usually at nights and weekends therefore paid more (like the childminders we have to pay to look after our kids as weekends while we work). The gov wants to pay more for basic daytime work while reducing on call pay. So one goes up, the other goes down and usually the money in your pocket is less in most circumstances but the gov shouts from the rooftops about the 13% raise in basic. So while they can claim to be telling the truth, it's really a fancy lie. The BMA even proposed a way sorting this which wouldn't have cost ANYTHING more than they pay already but this was rejected by Jeremy Hunt. Amazingly when the gov quote doctors pay they seem to alway quote the highest paid junior doctor in the country rather than the average joe bloggs just out of university with £40k of debt and no rich parents to back them up. Then accuse them of being on the golf course.

*But more people are dying at weekends!* -Something must be done! Jeremy Hunt likes to quote scientific papers which seem to backup his point of view, even when the people who wrote them tell him he is misinterpreting them. I have difficulty understanding some papers and I've been reading them for 25 years. Jeremy Hunt is like a toddler reading a newspaper- all he reads is the shouty headline and believes it. One of his favourite papers said babies born at the weekend seemed to be more likely to die therefore he says more junior doctors were needed. What he didn't mention was that they were even more deaths on a weekday (I think Tuesday) than the weekends. He didn't suggest more doctors on a Tuesday did he? In fact because the doctors will be working at the weekend there will be fewer available on the Tuesday when the death rate was highest. How does that make any sense?

*Doctors are leaving the country* - I've seen this with my own eyes. If it was your child facing a life of decreasing pay and poor prospects having worked their arse off at school and university would you stop them going abroad where they have a better quality of life, salary and conditions. These people have transferable skills which can be used anywhere in the world. They would be mad not to and they are leaving in droves as they feel they have no future here and I don't blame them a bit. If it were me 20 years ago this would have driven me away and I wouldn't look back.