GPs wanting a huge rise in pay

[dynatron]

whats your views-i certainly do not think they deserve it not by the way i have been treated the last few years-hospital doctors and nurses yes they should be earning more but gps i would say live ion the real world
most gps at my surgery and locally only work 2 or 3 days a week so i guess they either have other jobs or earn enough to have the privelage of only working a few days a week

[myothernameis]

whats your views-i certainly do not think they deserve it

If they ended up eventually going private, think they could set there own pay.   And now tonight on the news BT workers voting to strike, and this might affect emergency calls, like 999

Seems every work place is now voting to strike, more like dominos, so just wonder what company will workers come out to vote to strike

[Doc Holliday]

Could this maybe be merged with this thread? https://www.ukpunting.com/index.php?topic=348050.0

[lamboman]

This is what happens when you bang pots and pans for lazy people,ridiculous to ask for 30%.

[lillythesavage]

If they ended up eventually going private, think they could set there own pay.   And now tonight on the news BT workers voting to strike, and this might affect emergency calls, like 999

Seems every work place is now voting to strike, more like dominos, so just wonder what company will workers come out to vote to strike

I was talking to my mate this evening, union rep for his council job, a London Borough. He thinks the whole lot are going on strike soon, there is a union meeting and every dept rep is involved.

[lamboman]

I was talking to my mate this evening, union rep for his council job, a London Borough. He thinks the whole lot are going on strike soon, there is a union meeting and every dept rep is involved.

No surprise a summer of discontent coming up,and to think this could have been nipped in the bud.

[myothernameis]

No surprise a summer of discontent coming up, and to think this could have been nipped in the bud.

Not surprising with all that is going on, and how do we pay for everyday items

Energy prices due to go up in Oct, food prices rapidly rising, oil prices, up and up, to the point some motorists might not be able to afford this. 

Today for the 4th month, have been told my mortgage payments are going up again, and a further rise to be implement from 30 Jul. Another £10 per month, and total increase for the last 6 months £35

[jackdaw]

I don’t think giving doctors a 30 percent increase is in best long term interests of NHS. I hope it fails.

One big problem is early retirement of doctors. And I actually think that’s primarily driven by the fantastic generosity of the pension scheme encouraging early retirement, rather than job being exceptionally onerous. If doctors do get a big rise…the access to early pensions has to be controlled in some way,or the trend to retire early will accelerate further and the rise will be ruinous for nations health.

The other thing that blatantly has caused problems for NHS has been allowing doctors to work both privately and for NHS. I can see why that came about…and it’s probably too late to reverse it now…but I do think it’s been damaging.

[lillythesavage]

Not surprising with all that is going on, and how do we pay for everyday items

Energy prices due to go up in Oct, food prices rapidly rising, oil prices, up and up, to the point some motorists might not be able to afford this. 

Today for the 4th month, have been told my mortgage payments are going up again, and a further rise to be implement from 30 Jul. Another £10 per month, and total increase for the last 6 months £35

The fuel prices are just oil barons using unrest to fuel, pardon the pun, increased oil prices. We must be using less of it with all the green lobby stuff and ever more economical vehicles. Making hay while the bombs fall. There does not seem to be a shortage of crude 

[Doc Holliday]

This is what happens when you bang pots and pans for lazy people,ridiculous to ask for 30%.

I can think of a number of derogatory adjectives to describe GPs and which may hold some validity, but lazy is not one of them.

[lillythesavage]

I can think of a number of derogatory adjectives to describe GPs and which may hold some validity, but lazy is not one of them.

Agree, at my surgery they certainly are not, getting a recent problem sorted, my GP called me several times while on sick leave.

[DastardlyDick]

Aren't GPs actually self employed? The NHS just hires them in. I know surgeons are, and do private work on the side.

[lamboman]

I can think of a number of derogatory adjectives to describe GPs and which may hold some validity, but lazy is not one of them.

3 day week seems a bit lazy to me and it's not only GPS asking for 30% FYI.

[Geoff800]

Aren't GPs actually self employed? The NHS just hires them in. I know surgeons are, and do private work on the side.

No some GPs are 'GP Partners' which basically own part of the practice they work in.

Then there are Salaried GPs that have contracts with an individual practice but no stake in it.

Then there are Locum GPs who can pick and choose where they work either by invoicing directly or via an agency.

The problem is locum is most favourable at present as the hourly rate is much higher, sure they don't have the benefits of sick pay / annual leave etc. but the demand is so high for them and the pay generally a lot more per hour and they can pick and choose where and when they work.  They often don't have to do work outside of patient consultations i.e. no checking of test results, no authorising prescriptions, no reviewing letters such as those from hospitals with actions for the GP practice.  This leads to poor continuity of care for patients.

[Doc Holliday]

Aren't GPs actually self employed? The NHS just hires them in. I know surgeons are, and do private work on the side.

GPs are Independent Contractors and have had that status since 1948 and before. Practices are now in effect independent businesses owned and run by either by GP partners or some by a private company or a combination.

They have a contract with the NHS via a CCG. The income from that (possibly subsidised by a small amount of private work) covers the cost of running the practice. This includes the salaries of other GPs who work there who are not partners in teh practice. Usually salaried GPs within a practice are normally the majority. The salary scale is based on national guidelines but with some flexibility. As with any business any money left in the pot is profit and shared by the partners. As a result some partners can have considerable incomes whereas the salaried GP's fall into a lower income bracket.

A Hospital Consultant is a salaried position. Once again since 1948 they retain Independent Contractor status if the wish, to allow them to do Private work which equates to self employed income. The current NHS consultant contract controls how much Private work the Consultant can undertake and a slightly complex module system means they are required to undertake more NHS commitment if the carry out Private work. More junior hospital doctors cannot undertake private work themselves, but may be 'employed' by the Consultant to assist.

Edit Geoff beat me to it  .. and yes he is correct about locums for the reasons  given, although my GP practice is a large practice but fortunately has few locums

[Doc Holliday]

3 day week seems a bit lazy to me and it's not only GPS asking for 30% FYI.

But they work very hard for those three days 

No it's not only GPs seeking a rise, which is why I said GP's. There are some lazy doctors in other sections of the NHS 

[Doc Holliday]

I don’t think giving doctors a 30 percent increase is in best long term interests of NHS. I hope it fails.

One big problem is early retirement of doctors. And I actually think that’s primarily driven by the fantastic generosity of the pension scheme encouraging early retirement, rather than job being exceptionally onerous. If doctors do get a big rise…the access to early pensions has to be controlled in some way,or the trend to retire early will accelerate further and the rise will be ruinous for nations health.

The other thing that blatantly has caused problems for NHS has been allowing doctors to work both privately and for NHS. I can see why that came about…and it’s probably too late to reverse it now…but I do think it’s been damaging.

Retirement is a huge problem and is set to get worse. External Link/Members Only

The NHS pension once the 'jewel in the crown of pensions' is less so now for Consultants and GPs especially, and since the government began messing with it in 2008 and 2015. There are now tax implications which deter older Doctors from doing extra NHS work as they approach retirement. External Link/Members Only This adds to the overall manpower issue with GPs and waiting list back logs for Consultants.

Fortunately I retired before most, though not quite all, of the meddling began. A question of "I'm all right Jack". 

[petermisc]

What I have seen very little mention of is job satisfaction. It is not just the pay that is causing GPs to give up work, it is the very low sense of satisfaction that they now get from the job.  Various government initiatives mean that they now spend a lot of their time acting as managers, not doctors.  And the time that they have left doctoring, they are so overwhelmed that they don't have the time to spend getting to know their patients like they used to.

In large city practices, where they can afford to employ a raft of administrators, things are bad enough.  But the small rural practices, that don't have the numbers to afford that, are really struggling.

If things go on as they are, GP practices are going to go the way of  NHS dentists and opticians.  We desperately need more GPs.  Increasing their pay is one way, but we also need to look at other things, like decreasing the administrative load.

[lillythesavage]

If things go on as they are, GP practices are going to go the way of  NHS dentists and opticians.  We desperately need more GPs.  Increasing their pay is one way, but we also need to look at other things, like decreasing the administrative load.

They already are, with multi nationals buying up surgeries. Then they use Locums as and when, a nightmare for patients.

[petermisc]

whats your views-i certainly do not think they deserve it not by the way i have been treated the last few years-hospital doctors and nurses yes they should be earning more but gps i would say live ion the real world
most gps at my surgery and locally only work 2 or 3 days a week so i guess they either have other jobs or earn enough to have the privelage of only working a few days a week

The GPs at my surgery only work 2 days a week.  But that is because they are spending their other days working at other surgeries, as GPs are in such short supply around here.

There are also some who would have given up the job altogether, but have stayed on for a few days a week out of a sense of duty, because they know the impact them leaving would have on those left, and their patients.

[Colston36]

whats your views-i certainly do not think they deserve it not by the way i have been treated the last few years-hospital doctors and nurses yes they should be earning more but gps i would say live ion the real world
most gps at my surgery and locally only work 2 or 3 days a week so i guess they either have other jobs or earn enough to have the privelage of only working a few days a week

GPs are in for £1 million pensions.

[nbarnes]

What I have seen very little mention of is job satisfaction. It is not just the pay that is causing GPs to give up work, it is the very low sense of satisfaction that they now get from the job.  Various government initiatives mean that they now spend a lot of their time acting as managers, not doctors.  And the time that they have left doctoring, they are so overwhelmed that they don't have the time to spend getting to know their patients like they used to.

In large city practices, where they can afford to employ a raft of administrators, things are bad enough.  But the small rural practices, that don't have the numbers to afford that, are really struggling.

If things go on as they are, GP practices are going to go the way of  NHS dentists and opticians.  We desperately need more GPs.  Increasing their pay is one way, but we also need to look at other things, like decreasing the administrative load.

This as well.

A lot of the 'useless' non-job wallahs that the government \ press bitches about are there to go government-mandated work in the NHS 

[petermisc]

GPs are in for £1 million pensions.

While that may sound a lot, in terms of what it pays out per year, its not that great.  You do need to have invested a LOT to get a decent pension.

[anyfucker]

Retirement is a huge problem and is set to get worse. External Link/Members Only

The NHS pension once the 'jewel in the crown of pensions' is less so now for Consultants and GPs especially, and since the government began messing with it in 2008 and 2015. There are now tax implications which deter older Doctors from doing extra NHS work as they approach retirement. External Link/Members Only This adds to the overall manpower issue with GPs and waiting list back logs for Consultants.

Fortunately I retired before most, though not quite all, of the meddling began. A question of "I'm all right Jack". 

Aren't the tax implications because they have such huge pension pots they would become liable to extra tax?

[hullad]

General practice Doctors are vital and the government has and is continuing to starve them of funds, they trying to privatise by steath. Meanwhile private firms are getting huge wads of cash to build health centres and hospitals no one wants, my own local health area pays Richard Branson's medical over £140 million a year. That comes out of the general practice spend 

When are people going to wake up and see this lot are all smoke, mirrors, lies and we are paying more and more for less.

50 new hospitals eh bowis .....lying bastard

[Adoniron]

General practice Doctors are vital and the government has and is continuing to starve them of funds, they trying to privatise by steath. Meanwhile private firms are getting huge wads of cash to build health centres and hospitals no one wants, my own local health area pays Richard Branson's medical over £140 million a year. That comes out of the general practice spend 

When are people going to wake up and see this lot are all smoke, mirrors, lies and we are paying more and more for less.

50 new hospitals eh bowis .....lying bastard

To be strictly accurate I think he only promised 40 new hospitals but a lie nonetheless.

[timsussex]

Aren't the tax implications because they have such huge pension pots they would become liable to extra tax?

we have even more doctors qualifying but there is a shortage because of early retirement

why ?

 because they have such great pensions they can retire early on a pension that the plebs can only dream of even if they work till 70 - which they will soon have to do in order to pay for the GPs and the civil servants pensions

[Doc Holliday]

Aren't the tax implications because they have such huge pension pots they would become liable to extra tax?

Apologies for not replying earlier I missed your post.

Yes there is truth in that and it is mostly affecting those who are high earners and/or have paid into the scheme over a long period of time. However the real issue is the complexity of the system, which makes planning difficult and means that Doctors may only become aware of the pension tax liability when the demand arrives from HMRC. This has meant that some are saying sod it I won’t take a chance on receiving such an unexpected bill and decide instead to reduce work load as they approach retirement or not to work post retirement after receiving a pension which historically was common for those covered mostly by the 1995 scheme, were the retirement age was 60.

This would not matter as much if there was not a shortage of Doctors, especially GPs.

I did post a government link earlier outlining some of the issues. There are many BMA and BDA links discussing this but you may think they are biased (and they will be to a degree) so I won't post any.

However if you seriously want to look into it further to understand the problem this is quite a good read External Link/Members Only

It is based on and links to this document which is extremely detailed. External Link/Members Only

They discuss the complexity issue which is at the heart of it, especially the tapered relief allowance. They are from 2019 and sadly the Government still has not resolved it.

[Yankee21]

They deserve it.

[shadow2000x]

whats your views-i certainly do not think they deserve it not by the way i have been treated the last few years-hospital doctors and nurses yes they should be earning more but gps i would say live ion the real world
most gps at my surgery and locally only work 2 or 3 days a week so i guess they either have other jobs or earn enough to have the privelage of only working a few days a week

My local GP was just offering online consultations and by the phone even though all covid restrictions were lifted, this went on for a while. Also GPs never give any proper help with regards to a sports related injury or issue etc, better off fixing yourself or paying a physiotherapist up front most of the time.

[lamboman]

Aren't the tax implications because they have such huge pension pots they would become liable to extra tax?

Oh my heart bleeds for them it really does.
3 days a week and mostly consulting by phone,they are simply a lazy lot on the post covid bandwagon.
Thankfully I have private insurance.

[Moby Dick]

Do they deserve an increase?

 

Need to know how much their hourly rate is compared to other jobs.
Is that mentioned on this thread?

[Punterperson1971]

Can’t even get in my doctors,receptionist’s are nasty fuckers at mine and I don’t think they even want you to go into the doctors nowadays

[Moby Dick]

Aren't the tax implications because they have such huge pension pots they would become liable to extra tax?

I don’t know if GPs pensions are treated differently to the rest of us.....

The lifetime allowance for most people is £1,073,100 in the tax year 2022/23
They will pay more tax if their pot goes above this.

Also when they retire and take the pension the first 25% can be taken as a tax free lump sum.
The rest will be treated annually as income, combined with any other earnings, and tax will be calculated using the usual personal allowances, ie 40% tax currently kicks in for gross annual earnings above £50,270

Hence to reduce their tax bill, and to make sure they can spend it all before they die, it makes sense to retire early.

Plus from 67ish they can top up with their state pension, circa £9.6k/year.

[Watts.E.Dunn]

Had some experences with the GP's at our paratice and at Addendbrookes hospial in Cambridge and couldn't g fault any of them!, could attend to some of them but lets not go there:!

[shadow2000x]

Can’t even get in my doctors,receptionist’s are nasty fuckers at mine and I don’t think they even want you to go into the doctors nowadays

Yeah it’s definitely more difficult, I’d like to know how busy some of the gps really were in the time of all the restrictions (not the ones in the hospitals). As they always used to go on about how long their hours were

[Marmalade]

I don’t think the problem for GPs is pay. They get a pretty good salary. What makes the job unattractive is that there are too few GPs. They don’t have time to use their skills to optimum when patient demand has increased massively and they’re also getting abuse as well apparently.

One idea that’s been put forward is to charge £10 per appointment. I don’t know, it doesn’t seem a terrible idea. But tackling the cause is important. More people are going to a GP for loneliness and depression. People became more isolated during the pandemic and the toxic woke culture I suspect is making it harder for many people to let their guard down and interact with others.

[Razor Boy]

Our local GP's are still hiding from the lockdown, crouched very low behind their desks seeing as few people as possible and farming out as much as possible to online consultancy agencies .
Many NHS people worked their bollocks off during lockdown and take home a pittance compared to these GP's
The standard NHS staff continue to work extremely hard , with dwindling staff numbers and many off long term sick due to stress ( or playing the system). The uptake in new staff is poor as most saw that pots & pans banging does not equate to a decent take home pay(for the hours/rota fuck up/stress/abuse) that's where Brexit has fucked it all up as "foreigners" took up the slack.

The GP's are considered the lowest of the low around my way amongst the NHS staff as they have not only not stepped up to the plate when the chips were down, but actively stepped as far away from the plate as possible.

My wife, daughter and daughter in law and various friends are all employed in the NHS up to Band 6 at present (from palliative care to sick newborns) so these views are not off the cuff

[lamboman]

Our local GP's are still hiding from the lockdown, crouched very low behind their desks seeing as few people as possible and farming out as much as possible to online consultancy agencies .

This is so spot on they should be ashamed.

[Marmalade]

The GP's are considered the lowest of the low around my way amongst the NHS staff as they have not only not stepped up to the plate when the chips were down, but actively stepped as far away from the plate as possible.

I suspect this is partly that nurses and other 'lowly' staff are used to the idea of slaving away with lots of pressure, long hours, and minimum reward. They can take hassle on the chin.

GPs are a step or two down fronm the 'gentleman consultant'.
They are used to, and expect, respect, from patients, other staff and timetabling. If they want to sacrifice themselves to the point of fucking exhaustion in circumstances that are understaffed, resources underpaid, results barely noticeable, and the lowly-paid people around them going "we're all in this together", well in that case they fuck off to Africa.

Not saying they didn't enter the profession, and the long hours of training, to help people: but the present situation hardly resembles what they thought they signed up for. Their 'sacrifice' is working for a recognisable NHS instead of going into private practice for a better life. 

[Moby Dick]

Senior doctors being driven out of NHS by pensions tax
Read in The Times and The Sunday Times: External Link/Members Only

[Gordon Bennett]

Senior doctors being driven out of NHS by pensions tax
Read in The Times and The Sunday Times: External Link/Members Only

Seriously wealthy elderly doctors are no longer able to avoid tax by making massive contributions to their pensions funds so they are spending more time on golf courses and visiting their Tuscan holiday homes ought to be the headline there.
It's not even a new story. Been going on a good few years now ever since Treasury bought in the lifetime pension allowance.

[Marmalade]

How many people would be willing to pay for a 'fast-track' NHS appopintment?
A private one costs about £80 for 15 minutes (£50 for videocall) -- but then you have to pay for treatments on top.
What about a more nominal cost for an NHS appointment, how might that work? Maybe it would help to reduce no-shows?