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I suspect if the system became privatised, these wouldn't be profitable anymore, and only the best doctors would work in 'elite' hospitals, whereas others would do aid work for the poor at a reduced wage. Quite similar to the legal system in America - most lawyers work for peanuts for people who need legal aid but can't afford it, but if you're really good you can earn massive amounts by breaking into the top echelons of clients who are willing / able to pay.
GPs should work for their wage and not push people around (and yes they DO) I am demanded of at all hours, if I want a job 60 % of the time it will be a 6-2 or 2-10 shift and what do I get for such inconvenience ? crap all my last agency job I shifed 40 tons a day and how much did such demanding physical labour get me ? the minmal wage, a doctors position is VERY comfortable by comparison they refuse to commit themselves in case they are wrong, so what they went to uni ? hey if you do a job like that it should be cause its what you like and your motivated about it money corrups oh yes you pay the guy huge amounts of money obviously loads of people want to be doctors not because they really want to help people but because they want top rate wages for s desk job, if job centre staff can boast about 2000 £ holidays plus a couple of small ones to greece then I hate to think of the comforsts a doctors salary gives,
I find today in society that the most stressful and demanding jobs are the lowest paid ok so I didn't go to uni to learn how to unpack and repack 40 tons of tomatoe tins a day but I would really like to see if a doctor given nothing else would even be capable of doing such labour if we never got sick (and I don't !) how would they earn a living, same for them snotty job centre workers that look down their noses guess what madam if we all had jobs you would be next on the unemployment list so don't toy with me like its a game !
NO a doctors diagnose should be more than a couple of test results but based on the person years ago a doctor was practically a family friend and could give sound advice based on your circumstances and his real life experiences nowadays we are a name on a list that just needs a prescription
Just looking around at forums, it seems the majority of doctors hate their jobs but are stuck with it. Maybe we should go private. Well, I disagree, but let me imagine for a moment. I've got a private dentist now, who chooses her own hours, who is lovely as fuck, who knows me by name and what I'm doing at uni, asks me about my mum, even knows about my (now ex) gf ffs. Yes, it costs me £15 a check-up and £30 a filling or whatever, and if I need any extensive work done I'm sure it will be more expensive.
But I think that price is worth paying, even as a student, for the better service I get. It seems so many doctors hate working for the NHS so much, maybe if they all became private, a consultation wouldn't be so expensive, and they would choose their own hours and would have to directly compete with each other - rather than being given a pay check and then having 'to get through' the days worth of NHS patients who fill the books. If each client = an extra glass of champagne, they might be a bit more motivated.
It's this sense of entiltement that I keep seeing. "Well... we went to university! We deserve to get paid lots!" - wrong. You go to university, to learn the skills, to become able to work damn hard and make a huge difference, so you get paid lots. But I think for a lot they can't cope with the paperwork (that's part of the job), or whatever. So sure, let them go private. If they want to still get a paycheque they'll have to work hard and committed rather than just mosey through their work. Again, this doesn't change the work of the few who are constantly committed and amazing, but it seems so many are fed up of the NHS - which has become a burgeoning monster of a bill for the country anyway - that they should be cut loose.
Like I said above, I expect the majority will be worse off - doctors and people, and a few who can afford will get better treatment, and the few doctors who are good enough to be chosen by their clients will spend all their time playing golf. Which is why as I said first, it's a really bad idea. But it just seems to me that some are so blinkered, they don't see the big picture. That they're just part of a big machine to keep this country running. They won't believe you if you tell them independent surveys have found other jobs to be more stressful, because they can barely cope - because someone they knew killed themself from the stress. As bad as that is - it has to be all put in perspective.
I expect the majority of people will have suffered from work related stress, anxiety. And a fair few will have been fobbed off by their doctors. I know mine treated my anxiety related to school horribly.
I think in the future it shouldn't make a massive difference to me either way... but I really wish we could come to some compromise where the people providing the services to this country were happy to do it.
For instance GP partners don't get pension additions from their employers.
So if the average GP earns (which I don't believe they do) 100,000 you need to take 14,000 off it to make it comparable to others. Then they have to pay £5000 insurance. That takes us to £81,000. With other necessary subscriptions take that to £80,000. Many do more hours than than the 40 hour week ( I do a 10 hour day, often missing lunch and have 1/2 day a week to catch up on admin). Thats worth at least another 10,000 possibly £20,000.
£70,000. We die 9 years younger than the average life expectancy. We are at university for 5-7 years while others are earning and then come out with massive amounts of debt (personally I had 34000).
I don't think being a GP is a walk in the park and if I could go back I wouldn't have chosen it as a career path and I certainly wouldn't recommend it . In the current climate of GP bashing (which is pure goverment spin to change the way primary care functions including its privatisation) if i can find a way to get out I will do !!!
What happened to comitment ...is all just about money these days?
But the thing is, don't you think other equivilent professionals also have to do more hours than their 40 hour week? I mean, that's across the board - people in the UK at all levels work through their lunch breaks, work longer hours unpaid than anywhere else in Europe. I was looking at some careers in management consultancy (solving people's problems for them, basically). You are expected to be in the office for 7am, and you don't leave until at least 7pm. If there is a big contract or something, you work through the night. It put me off horrendously, the idea of giving up my life. Doctors, arguably, should be working even more so because they're not management consultants, they're life savers.
We are a nation of workaholics. But the fiscal compensations are massive. If you want an easier time of it, I'm sure there are other countries or other careers where the rewards aren't as vast but the hours are more agreeable. But again, who in the UK is happy to take a pay cut? We are - obsessed - with our work, and our salaries. That's why there is migrant labour coming here because if we're not cut out for the job they will happily reap the rewards.
We have an east European lady doc in our surgery now and she's putting the others to shame ...the others do a three day week and a lot of golf and horse riding and wouldn't dream of being called out at night ...not this girl ...she is an embarresment to the others
The average doctor in poland gets a salary of around £4500 - £5000. The average doctor in the UK gets around 20 times that. And then moan they work too hard
If I could move to poland and get paid 20x what I would get paid over here, I'd jump at the chance. It would be a blessing if those Polish workers were all complaining that's the work's too hard, because then I would have an even easier time getting a job. Work for 3 years, that's 60 years worth of salary under your belt!
If they do a 3 day week that doesn't mean they get paid the same as those working full time !!!
There are people working for 7p an hour in India and working hundreds of hours. I don't think it should be used as a reason to make people in this country do more hours of work or get paid less. There will always be people from abroad who will be prepared to do anyones job here for half the price and twice as much work. Is it to be used as an excuse to welcome a drop in wage for everybody ? I'm sure theres someone on this globe who'd be prepared to do your job for £1 a day. Does that therefore mean you should be happy with the same ?
I would also like to know when you think GPs have time to play golf? I have spent the last year working 50 hours a week which is soon to go up given the goverment enforcement of out of hours. The rest of the time I spend reading either preparing for exams or trying to keep up to date. I?m 35 and because the government has pi**ed about so much changing the goal posts with the NHS I have faced loss of job every 6months-2 years since graduating , having to move house continously, not having any time for a family and finally when I moved into GP land from hospital and was hoping to be a bit settled they start changing it all again.
I have 3 degrees and numerous post graduate qualifications, I am the most highly skilled/qualified of any non medical colleagues I know. My job also involves life saving which should count for something. So yes I think we should be fairly paid. And yes I do think I could have earned more money outside of medicine
The problem I think is the perspective. Of you and Dr. Rant it's very much introverted. "I went to university and I got bullied because I was smart and I worked hard and I got into debt and I so I DESERVE to get paid grossly more than others"
Well, thing is, if you look around you everyone else goes through the same crap. Everyone is in debt after uni. I'm only doing 4 years to do one degree and will be at least £24000 in debt. I couldn't afford to stay on to do another two degrees. But you don't hear me moaning about how hard done by I am. Most people work hard to get a job and feel proud to get there. Some in the medical profession just moan when they get there. If you want to work less hours as I said, the EU is open now, you can move around, there will be other jobs
Besides, it's 1.43pm on a tuesday afternoon, shouldn't you be working?
I don't think GPs are over paid (eg headmaster average 78,000), certainly not as compared to similarly skilled professionals. I do think they have been misrepresented to the public by the goverment and wages overstated. Since when have the press carried on this level of profession bashing for so long. The goverment are encouraging it and using it as a weapon for change and the public are lapping it up. Perhaps the profession seems introverted because the public fail to see what being and becoming a doctor actually involves (or the extra charges, time spent costs etc involved) and is mainly interested in slagging them off. GPs are severely under threat at the moment with all the goverment changes and perhaps are moaning in the hope that the public might develop a more balanced view about what is actually going on and give us some empowerment to stop it.
I know something of other professions. My father was a manager and mother a teacher. They didn't do anything like the level of work I have done. My brother is a barrister, he has less qualifications than me and earns 5 x as much. I don't earn anything like the average 100,000. Salaried GPs are earning between 55-70K and theres likely to be more and more of these in the future as private companies come in. The current drive is going to put the money in the hands of private companies and foreigners. Do you think that will give us a better service ?
:banghead: I'm at home today on annual leave studying for the MRCGP exam (which is tomorrow) or at least I?m trying to. I work in a practice of 10 doctors and none of us play golf !!!
Should do - it's great for stress....
Thats because hours have improved over the last few years (and also because you've probably little idea what GP hours are like). Personally I'm Ok with a 50 hour week (its a whole lot less than it used to be). The problem is that now it seems to be that people want the hours to go back up again!! Why should I not be allowed to have a family ? Do I have to be wholly committed to improving and taking responsibility for everyone elses life except my own? Otherwise I'm not a good doctor? Sounds like a recipe for a miserable and poorly performing doctor.
Lets face it, the public isn't going to be happy until they're sure GPs are all miserable. Pay back for every time they've had to wait for an appointment (god forbid !) and not been taken seriously for a snotty nose
no actually its should put them to shame just because "where she comes from" people are paid less, I put my stores department to shame by simply getting with the job but they like to sit around and do shit all infact it goes without saying I'm not the most popular person in the stores ! many people are lazy on their jobs I'd like to see many more people paid by their performance because yes I am sick and tired of putting right errors made by some trwat that can't be bothered.
(Its also important to note the poster has probably no idea what hours the "eastern european lady" doctor puts in relative to the other doctors)
The only sense it puts people to shame is in the communist way, which is clearly idealist and non workable
No-one is disliked for being a good manager/worker. Are you sure thats the reason ?
"I'd like to see many more people paid by their performance" well I certainly agree with that and thats exactly what the goverment intended when it brought in the QOF framework a few years ago. GP pay went up as a result
A key part of getting the public on our side is to counter the fat cat image of the 100-250K GP portrayed in the media. Judgements on the fairness of GP pay are distorted by the inclusion of superannuation, private earnings and hours worked. In order to put our pay into a wider context I have calculated the equivalent salary I would need to be paid to keep my current take home pay (before tax) the same and then scaling it down to a 37.5hr week (same terms as a nurse practitioner).
My earnings should be fairly close to the average as last year's accounts were close to 100K profit/partner and I am a non-property owning principal in an average sized, non-dispensing, GMS practice (6400 pts, 3.5 partners,1/2 time retainer) with max QOF and enhanced services in a middle England market town and working 50hr/week. This comes to £20/hr, after deductions, for NHS work which is equivalent to 48K gross for a 37.5hr week - not much more than a Band 7 nurse. This is
hardly the 110K, 9-5 GP being portrayed in the media.
As far as 250K GPs are concerned, they must be entrepreneurs who own multiple practices. I am told that Richard Branson's daughter has just become a GP. If she were to run Virgin Healthcare we would no doubt be getting "100million pound GP" headlines.
Could someone in the GPC get an accountant to work out and PUBLICISE what an average GP would earn, if salaried for a standard working week, to show our value relative to nurse practitioners and to dispel the fat cat image
For reference, an £80k car is not that difficult to attain if taken on a lease through their business. People, unless lottery winners or genuinely super-rich, do not splash the full whack of cash on such a heavily depreciating asset. Think clearly about this.
For example (Taken from http://www.contracthireandleasing.com/cars/Aston_Martin/V8_Vantage/):
ASTON MARTIN V8 VANTAGE - 4.3 COUPE. 3X35, 10000MPA.
Price: £1399 per month
How do you know the GP was on £300k? Did they tell you or anyone else?
Regarding property - people upgrade from one place to the next. It doesn't mean their mortgage on a £500k house would be the same as a first time buyer. Chances are their mortgage could be 'minimal' if they made sound business decisions.
Shyboy
I think if you wanted to p*ss me off you could have chosen a more realistic example rather than just making me laugh
I was attempting to point out that a flashy car and a nice house don't necessarily mean somebody is earning pots of cash.