Underpaid UK Doctors Flee Health System in Crisis

Long hours, poor compensation and understaffed hospitals. Junior doctors in the UK are asking for a 35% pay increase in the biggest wave of strikes since the 1980s.

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[matrixberzins]

In Latvia, we solve this problem differently. My wife is a doctor (neurologist) who studied for 10 years at university including residency. One of the Latvian cities offered to repay her student loan if, after obtaining her diploma, she would be willing to sign a contract with the city's hospital for at least five years. When the diploma was obtained, we moved to live in another city. As a bonus, the municipality gave us a large four-room apartment without rent, where we only have to pay utility and management fees. As another bonus, the Ministry of Health of the country paid the wife an allowance of several thousand euros for the fact that she went to work at the regional hospital from the capital. As far as I know, the hospital where my wife works does not have a medical staff and does not plan to quit her job or move to work in another country!

[true-liberal]

My wife works as an ICU nurse night shift in Bay Area California (32hrs a week, 4 nights) and makes over 150k/year. I am shocked to see they make so less in the UK as a physician.

[JenniferOpal]

My friend was a Junior Doctor in the NHS. She was making about £25, 000 a year with overtime. On top of that, she was paying back her student loans, she had to pay out of pocket for courses or additional qualifications to specialise.

She left the NHS, left the UK too & took her skills to Dubai.

More pay, better quality of life, & her mental health has improved.

These are the same people that we were clapping for in 2020. We should absolutely be paying them more. If the UK doesn’t want to, that’s fine but let’s not expect the NHS to get better. 🤷🏾‍♀️

[thomasanderson]

Both my wife's parents were nurses for over a decade in the NHS, then left to come to America for better pay. Hearing them speak about it, the difference in quality of life and pay in incredible.

[davidlloyd]

I worked for the NHS for 10 years. The pay review bodies are a joke. So I left and made a ton of money in private pharmaceutical companies

[lonelylovely]

Never stay where u are not appreciated financially

[vietduong]

Where the £300 millions healthcare fee per week promised by Boris Johnson during Brexit campaign have gone ?

[ronniekhinda]

How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Western Europe
Britain chose finance over industry, austerity over investment, and a closed economy over openness to the world.
U.K. is now an object lesson for other countries dealing with a dark triad of deindustrialization, degrowth, and denigration of foreigners. Having offshored industry in favor of finance, its economy wasn’t resilient

[mikeheap]

Vote with your feet NHS workers, protest, strike and leave to get your fair due's.
It's so sad to have to say that but it's gone on too long !

[AyyRalphy]

And to the ones that did stay. Thank you. 🙏🏼.

[paxundpeace]

Thanks for showing this, i really liked the way this explainer had been done, very personal but still detailed and filled with critical facts about junior doctors pay.

[I_like_YT_lots]

When you step back and realise an intern in asset management gets paid more than a fully qualified doctor in NHS, you know that's an issue with UK's health system. The amount of money stolen during COVID to dodgy contracts with politician's friends, family and pets plus dodgy COVID loans can used for multiple times to pay for these well deserved HCPs. You can't blame most of them moving into private practice or corporate jobs as we simply not paying them enough.

[staciamj]

I am stunned that physicians in the UK make 40000 per year. Is this a dang joke? WTH are they thinking?

[VulcanSpock]

Malaysia is experiencing similar problems as well.

[chiragshetty]

Its not worth it. My wife is a gp doctor we decided soon to look into opportunity overseas specially Australia looks attractive. When doctors are paid less it mean they are not valued and taken for granted.

[matthewbarry]

And whats funny is the NHS is superior to the HSE the Irish health system. We rank no. 1 in the OECD for the number of doctors we export and no.1 for the number of doctors we import.

[plumeria]

I live in Maui, Hawaii and we have a general surgeon working here who is from the UK. He immigrated to the US some years back and came here a couple of years ago.

[PatrickFoley-vflr]

Why can't the ROYAL FAMILY sell some jewels and

[special]

No different from the life of residents in US who have $300K debt at 7% interest from medical school education. You live hand-to-mouth 3-7 years. Most often, it is 7 years, as you are getting a fellowship after your primary residency.

[Shyndree]

I'm not working in healthcare, but I think a heard consistently that the more serious issue is burnout and understaffing, but they can only strike about pay. If I understand it correctly, they are expected to make such extreme overtime and work so hard to make up for missing staff, that the compensation for it is unfair. Staffing shortages are management issues, and that is the responsibility of the government to solve, and not just to hide behind an advisory body. There were promises paid that were not kept, but given the Partygate scandals, we can see how seriously the govt takes healthcare...