Next week UK resident doctors (AKA "junior doctors" or non-consultant hospital doctors/NCHDs here) are planning a walk-out strike in NHS hospitals: Why are resident doctors striking and what are they paid?. I'm posting this because of the chat elsewhere on AAM about the pros/cons of unions.
After many years in Ireland and a couple of other stints abroad, I am in the UK again and it has really changed since I last lived here. The HSE and NHS are very different places to work. My unit is an international centre of excellence attached to a top-5 university and medical school. We have over 40 doctors, of whom fewer than 10 are British. We also have many research doctors, oberservers, etc. from all over the world.
Among us foreigners, we are unanimous that UK-trained doctors have a bad deal. They have a lot of debt leaving medical school and the pay is too low for the job they do. Management here are often openly anti-doctor, with even senior professors being treated atrociously. Our unit has lost almost a dozen brilliant internationally-trained consultants over the past couple of years because of all of these factors. The ones who stick with it are generally locals who have personal/family reasons that keep them here.
This has all been a boon to the HSE who are hoovering up high-quality consultants from UK and Europe because of the new HSE consultant contract. And the reason that the contract is attractive is down to the main doctor union the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) - and to a lesser degree the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA).
The unions negotiated the government down from what was originally an absolute shocker of a proposed contract that no-one would have touched. The result is better for patients and doctors, hopefully giving us a shot at achieving Slaintecare or something similar. Stephen Donnelly (who I really did not have any time for originally) ended up being a very effective Minister for Health, probably the best we have had for decades, but then he was dumped by Wicklow voters for some random first-time TD.
The British Medical Association (BMA) has its work cut out for it here as public support for the strike has evaporated and Wes Streeting apparently has no money to give. Streeting is a shrewd operator along the lines of Leo Varadkar and will spin this very hard. I hope they can avert the strike but I worry that the Labour government is just not capable. I don't know what the BMA will be like but their leadership seems much more aggressive than the IMO, so they may find a way.
After many years in Ireland and a couple of other stints abroad, I am in the UK again and it has really changed since I last lived here. The HSE and NHS are very different places to work. My unit is an international centre of excellence attached to a top-5 university and medical school. We have over 40 doctors, of whom fewer than 10 are British. We also have many research doctors, oberservers, etc. from all over the world.
Among us foreigners, we are unanimous that UK-trained doctors have a bad deal. They have a lot of debt leaving medical school and the pay is too low for the job they do. Management here are often openly anti-doctor, with even senior professors being treated atrociously. Our unit has lost almost a dozen brilliant internationally-trained consultants over the past couple of years because of all of these factors. The ones who stick with it are generally locals who have personal/family reasons that keep them here.
This has all been a boon to the HSE who are hoovering up high-quality consultants from UK and Europe because of the new HSE consultant contract. And the reason that the contract is attractive is down to the main doctor union the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) - and to a lesser degree the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA).
The unions negotiated the government down from what was originally an absolute shocker of a proposed contract that no-one would have touched. The result is better for patients and doctors, hopefully giving us a shot at achieving Slaintecare or something similar. Stephen Donnelly (who I really did not have any time for originally) ended up being a very effective Minister for Health, probably the best we have had for decades, but then he was dumped by Wicklow voters for some random first-time TD.
The British Medical Association (BMA) has its work cut out for it here as public support for the strike has evaporated and Wes Streeting apparently has no money to give. Streeting is a shrewd operator along the lines of Leo Varadkar and will spin this very hard. I hope they can avert the strike but I worry that the Labour government is just not capable. I don't know what the BMA will be like but their leadership seems much more aggressive than the IMO, so they may find a way.