>”Striking junior doctors are on course to pocket six-figure salaries and bumper gold-plated pensions – even without the 35pc pay rise they are demanding.
>
>Young doctors, currently on day two of a four-day walk out, argue their wages have fallen in real terms while inflation has rocketed.
>
>However, analysis for The Telegraph reveals that they are still on track to receive retirement income worth close to 75pc of their salaries – and guaranteed to rise with inflation by the taxpayer.
>
>It comes as last month, in his Spring Budget, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt abolished the lifetime allowance on pension savings that was stinging doctors with tax bills and forcing them to retire early. It means senior NHS doctors will be spared large tax bills once owed on their generous pension deals which are often worth well over £1million.
>
>Last week the Telegraph also reported how public sector pensioners would this year receive an increase worth twice as much as the average pay rise.
>
>Currently, those starting out as doctors in England take home a basic pay of £29,384. This moves up to £34,012 in year two, and £40,257 in year three when they start to specialise.
>
>The Government has said, however, that these figures look more like £38,000, £46,000, and £55,000 respectively, once you take into account additional earnings for working unsocial hours.
>
>Junior doctors in their first year make up about 11pc of all junior doctors in England, with the majority of them on higher pay bands according to NHS England workforce statistics published late last year.
>
>The British Medical Association, the registered union for doctors, claimed back in March that junior doctors make just £14.09 per hour – less than someone who works at Pret a Manger.
>
>However, fact checking organisation Full Fact has since suggested this is not wholly true, arguing hourly pay for the average junior doctor – once extra earnings and holiday is accounted for – is more like £20 to £30 per hour.
>
>Independent pension consultant John Ralfe said that a junior doctor earning the third-year pay average of £40,257 would retire after 40 years with an NHS pension paying £29,790 each year – if their salary remained the same throughout their career.
>
>He said the pension deal was “spectacularly bigger” than those offered to private sector workers today. He added that if the same junior doctor saw their pay rise 35pc to £54,347, they would retire on a pension paying £40,000 a year.
>
>The analysis is also based on a scenario where the junior doctor in question never moves off junior pay. The majority of doctors go on to earn far more than £40,257 during their lengthy careers.
>
>Consultants earn a basic salary of anywhere between £88,364 to £119,133 per year, according to the NHS.
>
>Tom Selby, head of retirement policy at investment broker AJ Bell, said a 35pc pay rise for junior doctors would not necessarily keep pay high in the long run, and could mean contribution rates had to rise.
>
>He said: “A future government might hold back wage rises, for example. If the costs of public sector pensions goes up significantly, adjustments will be made to address that. As these are member costs rising, you’d assume that would mean member contributions going up or accrual rates reducing.”
>
>The 96-hour strike, which follows a long bank holiday weekend, aims to achieve a 35pc pay rise for junior doctors. Steve Barclay, secretary for the Department of Health and Social Care, has labelled the demand “unreasonable”.
>
>He said yesterday: “It would result in some junior doctors receiving a pay rise of over £20,000. Not only will the walkouts risk patient safety, but they have also been timed to maximise disruption after the Easter break.”
>
>The BMA says a “lack of investment in wages” by the Government has made it harder to retain junior doctors and harder to deliver care to professional standards.
>
>Average pay for junior doctors in their third year has increased on average by 2pc annually over the past 12 years, according to NHS data.
>
>But, according to the BMA, junior doctors have experienced a real-terms cut of more than 25pc to their salaries since 2008.
>
>The Chancellor got rid of the £1,073,100 lifetime allowance last month in a bid to prevent top NHS doctors retiring early to avoid tax on their pension.
>
>It comes as it emerged that junior doctors can already claim up to £10,000 tax-free in “life admin” expenses on the NHS, including redirecting their post and nursery fees.
>
>In the last five years, more than £40 million has been claimed by junior doctors in moving expenses, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
>
>Since 2012, junior doctors have also been able to access bursaries and £1,000-a-year grants from the NHS, funded by the taxpayer.
>
>Those with access to bursaries and studying a graduate-entry accelerated degree in medicine – i.e. it is not their first degree – can also receive £3,715 a year to cover tuition fees for up to three years.
>
>There are, however, some hidden costs to being a junior doctor. Training doctors have to pay for their own exams, the price tags for which can sometimes total thousands of pounds.
>
>There are also yearly licensing fees doctors have to foot, as well as medical indemnity cover which doctors take out to protect themselves when things go wrong.
>
>Licensing fees through the General Medical Council are £161 a year for newly qualified doctors, before it jumps to £420, while basic indemnity insurance can cost anywhere upwards of around £30 a month.
>
>In April 2019, state-backed indemnity schemes were launched in England and Wales. This removed the need for GPs and their staff to arrange and fund their own clinical negligence cover.
>
>These schemes can, however, also be accessed by junior doctors, potentially saving them hundreds of pounds a year.
>
>The BMA was approached for comment.”
Ruby Hinchcliffe – Telegraph – 12/04/2023
Some more class war propaganda from the Torygraph designed to condition you to hate your neighbours for trying to fight for fair wages.
Fairly disingenuous article. It’s argument effectively boils down to:
> People earn more at the end of their career, so let’s pay them less than they are worth at the beginning of their career.
Is that how we treat the younger generations? We underpay them so that they can hope to be paid well in the future? Are we saying we overpay more experienced workers? Or do we not think we should just pay them fairly.
Jr Drs are not trying to hide their earnings. The contract and current pay deals are a matter of public record and can be found in a 5 second google. The £14 figure is the starting basic salary – as stated by many BMA reps. This rises to the top of the ladder basic of £28/hr.
Consultants have had it good in the past and many are retiring with big pots. But they’ve had an even bigger pay cut than Jrs. Which means todays Jr Drs will be categorically worse off compared to the Sr Drs before them.
The 10k life expenses stuff is ridiculous as well. Drs often have to move homes every 4 months (try finding a place to rent every 4 months!), mostly at their own expense. Nursery fee help doesn’t matter to people who can’t afford to have them let alone time to make them. And 3k a year bursary help to pay for courses that costs 10k… They can’t afford them!
In the end the article is trying to use absolute figures to make it out that Drs have a great deal. When in reality there are people in the UK who’s job it is to show UK Drs how much better it is in other countries, and help them to move as quickly as possible away from the UK for double pay and better training.
This isn’t Drs being greedy or trying to conceal the truth from you. This is Drs saying that if they aren’t paid a reasonable amount, an amount which isn’t even that competitive on the global stage, then we won’t have any Drs left to run the NHS in a few years time.
The whole student finance thing needs to be rethought.
Fees for UK medical students are charged 25-50% of the true cost, so the number of places for UK students at UK medical schools are severely restricted because they are run at such a loss.
The the government tries to get it back by paying NHS doctors less than they could get abroad and also nearly half of the NHS doctors come from abroad, mostly developing markets, because not enough are trained.
It would make a lot more sense just to charge doctors what their courses actually cost, increase the number of places and pay them more.
It’s very easy to say they are on £14 an hour – Because they are. Technically.
That’s the absolute base line. They get more for doing weekends, or unsociable hours. Same for nurses and so forth. You’ve also got to consider that doing locum work (taking an extra shift) STARTS at about £25 an hour.
It’s sincerely dishonest. I’m not against paying them more, but you’ve got to include everything they get as part of the conversation.
At what point is it morally justified to start setting the offices of the telegraph on fire?
7 comments
>”Striking junior doctors are on course to pocket six-figure salaries and bumper gold-plated pensions – even without the 35pc pay rise they are demanding.
>
>Young doctors, currently on day two of a four-day walk out, argue their wages have fallen in real terms while inflation has rocketed.
>
>However, analysis for The Telegraph reveals that they are still on track to receive retirement income worth close to 75pc of their salaries – and guaranteed to rise with inflation by the taxpayer.
>
>It comes as last month, in his Spring Budget, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt abolished the lifetime allowance on pension savings that was stinging doctors with tax bills and forcing them to retire early. It means senior NHS doctors will be spared large tax bills once owed on their generous pension deals which are often worth well over £1million.
>
>Last week the Telegraph also reported how public sector pensioners would this year receive an increase worth twice as much as the average pay rise.
>
>Currently, those starting out as doctors in England take home a basic pay of £29,384. This moves up to £34,012 in year two, and £40,257 in year three when they start to specialise.
>
>The Government has said, however, that these figures look more like £38,000, £46,000, and £55,000 respectively, once you take into account additional earnings for working unsocial hours.
>
>Junior doctors in their first year make up about 11pc of all junior doctors in England, with the majority of them on higher pay bands according to NHS England workforce statistics published late last year.
>
>The British Medical Association, the registered union for doctors, claimed back in March that junior doctors make just £14.09 per hour – less than someone who works at Pret a Manger.
>
>However, fact checking organisation Full Fact has since suggested this is not wholly true, arguing hourly pay for the average junior doctor – once extra earnings and holiday is accounted for – is more like £20 to £30 per hour.
>
>Independent pension consultant John Ralfe said that a junior doctor earning the third-year pay average of £40,257 would retire after 40 years with an NHS pension paying £29,790 each year – if their salary remained the same throughout their career.
>
>He said the pension deal was “spectacularly bigger” than those offered to private sector workers today. He added that if the same junior doctor saw their pay rise 35pc to £54,347, they would retire on a pension paying £40,000 a year.
>
>The analysis is also based on a scenario where the junior doctor in question never moves off junior pay. The majority of doctors go on to earn far more than £40,257 during their lengthy careers.
>
>Consultants earn a basic salary of anywhere between £88,364 to £119,133 per year, according to the NHS.
>
>Tom Selby, head of retirement policy at investment broker AJ Bell, said a 35pc pay rise for junior doctors would not necessarily keep pay high in the long run, and could mean contribution rates had to rise.
>
>He said: “A future government might hold back wage rises, for example. If the costs of public sector pensions goes up significantly, adjustments will be made to address that. As these are member costs rising, you’d assume that would mean member contributions going up or accrual rates reducing.”
>
>The 96-hour strike, which follows a long bank holiday weekend, aims to achieve a 35pc pay rise for junior doctors. Steve Barclay, secretary for the Department of Health and Social Care, has labelled the demand “unreasonable”.
>
>He said yesterday: “It would result in some junior doctors receiving a pay rise of over £20,000. Not only will the walkouts risk patient safety, but they have also been timed to maximise disruption after the Easter break.”
>
>The BMA says a “lack of investment in wages” by the Government has made it harder to retain junior doctors and harder to deliver care to professional standards.
>
>Average pay for junior doctors in their third year has increased on average by 2pc annually over the past 12 years, according to NHS data.
>
>But, according to the BMA, junior doctors have experienced a real-terms cut of more than 25pc to their salaries since 2008.
>
>The Chancellor got rid of the £1,073,100 lifetime allowance last month in a bid to prevent top NHS doctors retiring early to avoid tax on their pension.
>
>It comes as it emerged that junior doctors can already claim up to £10,000 tax-free in “life admin” expenses on the NHS, including redirecting their post and nursery fees.
>
>In the last five years, more than £40 million has been claimed by junior doctors in moving expenses, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
>
>Since 2012, junior doctors have also been able to access bursaries and £1,000-a-year grants from the NHS, funded by the taxpayer.
>
>Those with access to bursaries and studying a graduate-entry accelerated degree in medicine – i.e. it is not their first degree – can also receive £3,715 a year to cover tuition fees for up to three years.
>
>There are, however, some hidden costs to being a junior doctor. Training doctors have to pay for their own exams, the price tags for which can sometimes total thousands of pounds.
>
>There are also yearly licensing fees doctors have to foot, as well as medical indemnity cover which doctors take out to protect themselves when things go wrong.
>
>Licensing fees through the General Medical Council are £161 a year for newly qualified doctors, before it jumps to £420, while basic indemnity insurance can cost anywhere upwards of around £30 a month.
>
>In April 2019, state-backed indemnity schemes were launched in England and Wales. This removed the need for GPs and their staff to arrange and fund their own clinical negligence cover.
>
>These schemes can, however, also be accessed by junior doctors, potentially saving them hundreds of pounds a year.
>
>The BMA was approached for comment.”
Ruby Hinchcliffe – Telegraph – 12/04/2023
Some more class war propaganda from the Torygraph designed to condition you to hate your neighbours for trying to fight for fair wages.
Fairly disingenuous article. It’s argument effectively boils down to:
> People earn more at the end of their career, so let’s pay them less than they are worth at the beginning of their career.
Is that how we treat the younger generations? We underpay them so that they can hope to be paid well in the future? Are we saying we overpay more experienced workers? Or do we not think we should just pay them fairly.
Jr Drs are not trying to hide their earnings. The contract and current pay deals are a matter of public record and can be found in a 5 second google. The £14 figure is the starting basic salary – as stated by many BMA reps. This rises to the top of the ladder basic of £28/hr.
Consultants have had it good in the past and many are retiring with big pots. But they’ve had an even bigger pay cut than Jrs. Which means todays Jr Drs will be categorically worse off compared to the Sr Drs before them.
The 10k life expenses stuff is ridiculous as well. Drs often have to move homes every 4 months (try finding a place to rent every 4 months!), mostly at their own expense. Nursery fee help doesn’t matter to people who can’t afford to have them let alone time to make them. And 3k a year bursary help to pay for courses that costs 10k… They can’t afford them!
In the end the article is trying to use absolute figures to make it out that Drs have a great deal. When in reality there are people in the UK who’s job it is to show UK Drs how much better it is in other countries, and help them to move as quickly as possible away from the UK for double pay and better training.
This isn’t Drs being greedy or trying to conceal the truth from you. This is Drs saying that if they aren’t paid a reasonable amount, an amount which isn’t even that competitive on the global stage, then we won’t have any Drs left to run the NHS in a few years time.
The whole student finance thing needs to be rethought.
Fees for UK medical students are charged 25-50% of the true cost, so the number of places for UK students at UK medical schools are severely restricted because they are run at such a loss.
The the government tries to get it back by paying NHS doctors less than they could get abroad and also nearly half of the NHS doctors come from abroad, mostly developing markets, because not enough are trained.
It would make a lot more sense just to charge doctors what their courses actually cost, increase the number of places and pay them more.
It’s very easy to say they are on £14 an hour – Because they are. Technically.
That’s the absolute base line. They get more for doing weekends, or unsociable hours. Same for nurses and so forth. You’ve also got to consider that doing locum work (taking an extra shift) STARTS at about £25 an hour.
It’s sincerely dishonest. I’m not against paying them more, but you’ve got to include everything they get as part of the conversation.
At what point is it morally justified to start setting the offices of the telegraph on fire?
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