Doctors Orders

Good capture.
It has always struck me that most of the time, industrial action targets service users rather than service provider owner/managers. In this case patients. I wonder what the impact would be if the doctors did their clinical work, but refused all clerical work except writing patient notes? We hear that a lot of time is spent on non-clinical bureaucracy - target that, and the management/govt would surely be more affected? Just a thought.
 
lindsay said:
It has always struck me that most of the time, industrial action targets service users rather than service provider owner/managers. In this case patients. I wonder what the impact would be if the doctors did their clinical work, but refused all clerical work except writing patient notes? We hear that a lot of time is spent on non-clinical bureaucracy - target that, and the management/govt would surely be more affected? Just a thought.
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Whole-heartedly agree. (y)
 
lindsay said:
Good capture.
It has always struck me that most of the time, industrial action targets service users rather than service provider owner/managers. In this case patients. I wonder what the impact would be if the doctors did their clinical work, but refused all clerical work except writing patient notes? We hear that a lot of time is spent on non-clinical bureaucracy - target that, and the management/govt would surely be more affected? Just a thought.
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Do you think any Government would admit to the cost/impact of any extra clerical work from such action if, to the public, patients were still being seen! :thinking:

I suspect they would brush it off until such a point something very bad things happened because the clerical work was not being done properly, and even at that point they would try to blame the Doctors.

Unless industrial action has a big enough impact to affect the most amount of people, it can be ignored. And surely impacting service users should have the most impact on service owners/managers, which is the point of industrial action, to try and influence your employer in the most effective way.
 
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All industrial action is imperfect in its method and effect, I suppose. The trouble is, impacting the customers only really works if by that effect it directly impacts the bottom line of the business or the owners; with a government owned organisation, they really don't care about the impact on service users unless it is going to affect their prospects in an imminent election, and I rather suspect the Tories see the next election as a lost cause anyway, so why bother. They also don't care about lots of UK-trained medical staff migrating to countries that offer more (Oz, NZ, Canada, USA) if they can pull in loads from developing countries without having to subsidise the training.
 
When I was in the computer industry I was paid a salary and if calculated by the hours I was supposed to work, I was on very good money. Unfortunately, there was always stuff to do outside of normal hours and if I took that into account, my hourly rate dropped alarmingly and that's what junior doctors are doing to justify their wage claims, saying that they get just £14 an hour. But this artificial wage has always been there and they still chose to be doctors; so with them already knowing what it was like, it shouldn't have come as a surprise, it's just the unions geeing them up after their success in getting the rail workers and tube drivers to annoy people and disrupt their daily lives.

I was always of the opinion that if I didn't like a job, I'd go and get another one. I eventually fell out of love with the computer industry and following my own advice, I left a hugely paid, but ultimately unfulfilling role, and became a truck driver -- terrible money at the time but I really enjoyed it and that was what really mattered in the end.
 
I feel sorry for the doctors - actually all within the NHS - it must be a shock to go through all the training to find the money is pants. If I were in their position I wouldn’t want to look at my medical problems for £14 an hour either.

That said I have no desire to be a teacher attempting to teach kids who feel they have the right to abuse me for whatever a teacher gets paid.

I see what we put in our bin and wouldn’t want to be a bin man.

I suspect that most of the above really wouldn’t want to do what I do for the money I get either. Maybe it is time that we look at pay structures and pay appropriately.

I would like to earn what Harry Kane earns for kicking a ball around for 90 mins though. Have Spurs got a slot free for me know?
 
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Tulipone said:
I feel sorry for the doctors - actually all within the NHS - it must be a shock to go through all the training to find the money is pants. If I were in their position I wouldn’t want to look at my medical problems for £14 an hour either.

That said I have no desire to be a teacher attempting to teach kids who feel they have the right to abuse me for whatever a teacher gets paid.

I see what we put in our bin and wouldn’t want to be a bin man.

I suspect that most of the above really wouldn’t want to do what I do for the money I get either. Maybe it is time that we look at pay structures and pay appropriately.

I would like to earn what Harry Kane earns for kicking a ball around for 90 mins though. Have Spurs got a slot free for me know?
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But it's not a shock for newly-qualified doctors. For as long as I can remember -- and that's a very long time -- it's been a well-known fact that junior doctors do a lot of hours for not a lot of money . When someone decides to become a doctor they already know what the hours are going to be like, they know what they are going to be paid and yet they do it anyway. One can't go into a job and then try to change it to suit oneself, the job was already there and it was known what it was going to be like; it's not as if they kept it a secret. People become doctors for many reasons and one of them is that eventually, if good enough, one becomes a consultant and gets absolute shedloads of money but, as in football, not everyone who can kick a ball can become another Harry Kane and that's the risk you take when you start a profession; in every trade, someone has to be at the bottom and do the grunt work for peanuts, there is no reason why doctors should be an exception. If they wanted a lot of money, they should have gone into law -- now there's a bunch of people so ridiculously overpaid for what they do it beggars belief -- I have to stop now, I feel a rant coming on.
 
Wages that may have been acceptable at one point, may become not acceptable over time as the world around changes. The same with work conditions. One could say that with any job, if you don't like the wages/conditions, go get another job. And if that reasoning applied to every occupation in dispute, there could be a mass exodus from some socially important occupations. :oops: :$ Not everyone is in the position to leave a job to get another for many reasons though. It is an easy thing to say though. :rolleyes:

With regards to junior Doctors in particular, to many of them it will have been seen as a calling, and that has been preyed upon to be treated and paid badly for many decades. It takes a lot of time to become a Doctor, so that is many years of poor treatment and not very good money. Be thankful that most of them put themselves through it all, or we would all be stuffed, as there are Doctors available in the UK for most people. Their working hours/conditions will have hopefully been reviewed over the years and been improved, and their pay needs to be too, as the cost of living rises massively, as well as their debt levels for such a long time training.

If workers did not challenge the pay and conditions of the jobs they are in when they think it is warranted, pay and conditions would never improve if left to most employers/business's, or in the case of Doctors, employer/Government.
 
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