According to the BBC, junior doctors already take home a handsome salary:
There are not many professions where you earn almost £40K in your first year, nearly £50K in your second and almost £80,000 in your fifth (goodness knows how much they earn after that!)
What do you think - should they get the whopping 30% increase they are asking for? 
What professions are as life saving?
They deserve all they can get.
IME, modern doctors, especially GPs, are bunch of charlatans - my local surgery used to be “home” for 5 permanent GPs with individual specialities - now, the “new” permanent GPs (I think there are 3) only work at the surgery for a couple of days a week each (mostly as “managers”) while the procession of “GPs-in-training” comes and goes in a blur as they tick their qualification boxes then move on - I’m beginning to think that they’re using AI on their PCs to come up with a diagnosis … 
At my local hospital, the situation seems the same - the knowledge and thought processes of junior doctors seem inadequate for their positions … 
No one in any profession is as good as they used to be. 
I’m as good as I always was, just need to find a profession now 
I think it’s the junior doctors that deserve the pay rise…
Junior doctors work, long and unsociable hours ,to often hospitals seems to be run by junior doctors.
I’m certain they saved my life in the past, so yes they deserve a big pay rise.
Actually there are loads of professions that offer this sort of money - and most with only basic 3 year degree (unlike doctors). Everything from law to IT to accountancy to consulting.
I was out to lunch yesterday with pals…their daughter is a consultant on A&E…can you believe she earns £180 per hour on her day shift and £250 per hour for a night shift during this present situation?..maybe they need to look at distribution of pay rather than ploughing more and more money in.
They saved my life a few years back so the certainly deserve a huge pay rise, you can’t blame them for moving to Australia instead where the pay is a lot higher
Their 30+% pay claim is far too high, but I do agree that a modest rise should be awarded. Medical personal play an important role in society via the NHS, but they are not the be-all and end-all of everything. I do think that some of the junior/trainee doctors do work too many hours per day, so perhaps that could be addressed by more staff and less hours, so maybe an increase in basic salary could be the answer in that instance.
The doctors say that their current pay is more than 30% lower than it was back in 2008. There is a shortage of doctors in the UK. There is also a shortage of support staff, which means doctors are having to more non-doctor work.
The crisis in the NHS has one of its roots right there. Not paying junior doctors more will encourage more to seek a better paid and more fulfilling career elsewhere. Making the above issues even worse.
Maybe not 30% wage rise but surely something significant is needed here.
No! Sorry but they need to learn budgeting like the rest of us.
Haven’t had a GP since 2012. There was an appointment for our son, we waited 4 hours and then it was cancelled and I was told to re-book another appointment.
I’d already got heat for not returning son to school, do I wasn’t having a great day… All I said was that I was disappointed with this situation. Due to this, fortnight later, I received my card (not kids or hubby’s) telling me that I had to find another GP.
Ever since I’ve tried and nothing happens.
So, if they don’t provide services to anyone with lifelong health problems… Well!!! Underserved!
I think the thing is with junior doctors is that they are quite underpaid and overworked at the beginning of their career but as they advance they can expect excellent salaries, well above the average persons
While others in healthcare, nurses, healthcare assistants, porters, ambulance drivers don’t really have the same opportunities. I know there are opportunities for advancement in those careers, but not on the same scale and it happens for less of them proportionately than for junior doctors
So, while I think they should get a pay rise, I certainly don’t think it should be 39% or anything like it
Perhaps there is an opening for Medical Clerks then.
There are not many professions that take a minimum of seven or eight years of training before you get a salary.
We, too, have a shortage of doctors due to a limited number of places (numerus clausus), the strong selection procedure, the long training (13 years) which is why the salaries are justified:
£54,000-67,000 as entry-level salary
£87,000 as a medical specialist usually when they are in their mid-thirties
up to £133,000 as a consultant
£330,000 and more as a senior consultant . Registered doctors in a private practice may earn more, radiologists often more than one million.
Like other professional groups they go where working conditions are better. In our case it’s Switzerland where they earn more and working hours are shorter while a lot of doctors from Eastern Europe and elsewhere come here and fill the gaps to some extent. Others decide to work in the pharmaceutical industry for the same reason.
The other thing to bear in mind when looking at the NHS doctors pay scales is that they will most likely have had to pay their own way through all those years of study to learn and train to be a doctor and will have racked up a lot of debt, including a hefty total of student Loans, before they even get to be Junior Doctors.
The average amount of debt a UK medical student will leave university with is between £50,000 and £90,000. This figure depends on how long their degree was (typically 4-6 years), whether they studied in London or not and whether they were studying medicine as an undergraduate or a postgraduate.
I realise they don’t have to start repayments until their salary reaches a certain threshold but this is debt they will have to repay from their salary at some point.
I agree with you @Boot . Which brings me to a lifelong fight and opinion that Education, as important as it is in our lives, should be available and free to all who wants to learn.
Personally, I had friends in the 80s which were going through University studies, while I had begun as a Public Servant in the government. I was appalled to discover that many, many is the emphasis here, future doctors including the entire medical fields, where their official degrees were actually bought and paid for by rich oarents.
These situations made me weary of the capabilities of these junior newly certified (not really responsible) doctors.
Put it that way, I was incredibly picky when it came time to be a doctor in any given surgeries.
Worst! Were the kids who went into these professions just for the benefits of acquiring the rights to prescribed what-have-you.
Granted, all this was experienced in the 1980s and some were found guilty and removed from medical membership and prevented from ever working. It was very worrisome.
At the end of the day, free education would help tremendously. Secondly, there is help with debts, especially in Scotland. Thirdly, having a good tight budget and living within your means for a few years, until salariés catch up, makes a huge difference.
One job I had at government in the 1980s paid around £12,000 a year. Nowadays, the same job receives a salary of £53,000 … An incredibly jump in just a short 30 years.
Boy they were glad of that pay raise. However, everything else went up as well. I hear from acquaintances back there, whom are now facing homelessness and atrocious debts. It’s such a sad mess, isn’t it?
Last job offer with over 20 years of experience, I was offered £2.50 an hour. Aye right! LOL…
Fine in principle, but how would you fund all those vast and wide spread seats of learning? Everything in this life has a cost and those costs have to be found somewhere.
