A record breaking turn out of 77.49% and a 98% yes mandate smashing the anti-trade union legislation that demands POSTAL votes for a significant size of the workforce who rotates on an at least an annual basis is undeniable.
What is more is that we told everyone our 72 hour full walk out first round of action back on 6th January.
We went through hell and back in covid.
Every winter has gotten worse and worse and worse.
And yet NOTHING changes.
This is what happens when a government doesn't listen.
IMPOSED wage freeze
IMPOSED contract
IMPOSED conditions on DDRB
Make no mistake.
The government has to OWN its decisions.
They have manufactured a workforce crisis.
As a society we all live through winters that are
dangerous. I've never known a "safe" winter.
Our own and loved ones' lives at risk.
Every year it gets worse and worse.
This winter just gone, doctors did not go on strike.
We chose to ballot after winter.
We chose to avoid winter.
We could see what was going to happen and we went to work to do our jobs in the awful conditions this government manufactured.
No space. No staff. No dignity.
Up to 1000 excess deaths a week...
That's like 2 Boeing 747s crashing a week!
I can not impress upon people how soul destroying it is to see this kind of anguish, pain, misery, and death.
Christmas Eve 2020 in the throws of the alpha variant I was working in an Isolation Resus in an A&E department on a night.
We had 3 critically unwell patients needing OptiFlow but ITU only had 1 machine left.
My patient was a pregnant lady and I fought for her and she got it.
We were so busy it wasn't until I was driving home on Christmas day morning that I realised that my patient got a resource but two people who needed it didn't.
Prolonged hypoxia is really not good for you.
I will never get closure to what happened to those other 2 patients.
I drive down the A2 to get to work every day and it always triggers this memory and my emotions.
Those 2 people almost certainly came to harm because we don't have the people, the space, the resources.
9000 doctor vacancies.
2000 fewer GPs.
Services cut, wages slashed.
Coming back to this year, we've been in a trade dispute since 1st October 2022. We were shouting at @SteveBarclay to help. To do something during the chaos.
His "door is always open" but the man did not turn up on our meeting with DHSC on Wednesday 22nd February.
We demanded to meet the next day and he didn't.
Then the lies started.
Barclay "met with BMA" - This was with @ERunswickBMA and @DrPhilBanfield to discuss the DDRB issues (which government manufactured). This was not with me to discuss pay.
8.2% pay deal - This was over 4 years making it approx 2% a year.
It had a pathetic turnout of 24%. People were disillusioned by the BMA after the government's imposition. If that was a ballot for strike that wouldn't be quorate.
That 8.2% deal specifically said that the pay REVIEW body can REVIEW the pay.
The government agreed to that. Now they say they can't retroactively look at it?!
They don't want to look because the DDRB said the government's decision will affect patient care.
Liars. Charlatans.
As of April 2022 we had lost 26.1% of our pay in real terms.
This requires a 35% uplift. That is maths, not shifting the goal posts.
Lord knows the Government have spaffed up the wall much more.
It's absurd for people to pooh-pooh the idea that we shouldn't value ourselves highly or that if we want money we should go into banking and not medicine.
Absurd.
Money is a measure of value. It's literally what it is there for.
If you pay someone less then you value them less
Doctors are highly educated, highly talented, highly skilled professionals
We gave it our all and more during covid and were EXCLUDED from the NHS Pay Deal
Covid aside, the skills we have are tremendously valuable and this is demonstrated by other countries paying competitively
Interpreting stories patients tell us
Examining for tell tale signs of disease.
Requesting appropriate investigations.
Interpreting imaging and blood tests.
Diagnosing and curating management plans.
Drains, tubes & lines
Intubate & Ventilate
Sedate & Operate
Resuscitation
Medicine is so complex and Doctors are so highly skilled that even we rely on each other in Multi-Disciplinary Teams
E.g. Oncologists + Radiologists + Surgeons
We can't replace each other and no one can step off the street and just be a doctor.
Compared to 2008
There are more patients.
Patients with more complexity.
More therapeutics.
We have up to £100k debt (not all is tuition!!)
Doctors can expect to pay approx £258k over 30 years in Student Finance alone.
I respect the plight of all workers who want fairer terms and conditions.
The BMA can only represent doctors. Join your union. Fight for #FullPayRestoration.
There are 3 responsible parties for healthcare.
1) Patients - Lifestyle factors 2) Healthcare Professionals - Advising, diagnosis, treating 3) Government - To create an environment to facilitate the delivery of healthcare between HCP and Patient. They have abandoned their duty.
Doctors,
This strike has not come out of the blue and your anger is not fleeting.
We will do what is necessary to bring this heartless, callous, deceitful government to restore our pay.
The government needs to stop playing games and just sign the deal.
It's a coordinated effort to change the shift from high quality healthcare for everyone to an abundance of low quality generalist care for everyone and reserving high quality care for few people.
It's the march to privatisation which is not necessarily a panacea for doctors and I'll explain why and why it doesn't matter what healthcare system we operate in, we need drs to utilise their power in order to continue providing high quality healthcare for healthcare outcomes
Common pathologies have had a great degree of competition and innovation over the years from pharmaceutical and other interventionalist developments.
Common pathologies are kind of bread and butter and easy to deal with now. They're also a reliable source of income for providers
Doctors are desperate to get off the treadmill of training especially when it's less training and more service provision.
Locum work provides simultaneously more stability and flexibility financially and geographically. That's just mad.
Contract work is so poorly paid and valued it is miserable.
Doctors see training like a breath holding exercise. Force yourself through the doors at work, cross your fingers and hope there's no disaster today, then exhale when you get home.
Have you never heard of CCT and flee?
Do you not feel the moral injury that we do as we know patients are unable to get the best care in the best time?
Do you not feel ashamed of the situation we are in?
Do you not feel scared of how your family would be treated?