THE proposed pension changes being imposed by the Government will hit junior doctors the hardest ("Pensions strike to affect thousands of operations", The Herald, May 31, and "Doctors embark on risky strategy", Herald leader, May 31).
I am still more than four years away from completing my training in anaesthetics and intensive care medicine. Approximately one-third of my working time is during unsocial hours (nights, weekends, evenings) and although given the title "junior" doctor I make crucial, life-altering decisions on a daily basis. My work is not unusual. I am just another junior doctor. During our time in training our basic pay lags considerably behind that in comparator professions.
It is little surprise that 92% of junior doctors voted for industrial action. To those correspondents who wrote that doctors are overpaid (Letters, May 29, 30 & 31) I would ask: what do they think the NHS should pay for years of postgraduate training, qualifications, experience and responsibility?
Career-average pensions will hit those who train for longest the hardest; that is, the most specialised doctors or those who work less than part-time to care for their family. Furthermore, the rate doctors are being asked to contribute, up to 14.5%, is double that being asked of civil servants on similar wages receiving similar pensions. This all comes on the back of having renegotiated the NHS pension scheme in 2008 to put it on an affordable basis, with all future cost increases being borne by NHS staff themselves, an agreement the Coalition Government has unilaterally torn up.
It is for these reasons that doctors will be taking industrial action for the first time in nearly 40 years. It is not a decision that has been taken lightly.
Dr Andrew C Morris,
Department of Anaesthesia,
Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh,
51 Little France Crescent,
Old Dalkeith Road,
Edinburgh.
I READ Ian W Thomson's comments with interest ( Letters, May 31). Whilst I understand his views may be heartfelt I believe his judgments on GP pay and historical changes to their contract miss several important points.
The "new" contract of which he writes was negotiated in response to GP pay lagging behind all the major Western countries by a considerable margin, for a considerable period of time.
The Government, however, sought to correct several pressures within the NHS at the same time. It froze GP pay at this ridiculous level but allowed the GPs to augment their pay by undertaking additional work which threatened to overwhelm hospitals. GPs do for pennies work that a hospital requires pounds to achieve, so the taxpayers' interests were well served.
The additional work required an increase in working hours, usually with additional staff. I assume Ian Thomson is talking about GPs opting out of 24-hour care when he comments on fewer hours of work. This was because the Government did not want to pay the paltry sum assigned to GPs (£13.70 per day) for 24-hour care, 365 days a year, as it felt it could do this cheaper with NHS 24 and similar initiatives.
In essence, this aspect of a GP's work was undervalued both financially and in terms of understanding the work they do. It is to be hoped people will resist the urge to look at an arbitrary figure and decide it is too much to pay for a GP without understanding the work they do. Otherwise the same mistake might be repeated.
Denis Clifford,
25 Ladeside Drive,
Kilsyth.
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