alistair
Basic pay for a new starter is less than top pay for pret barista.
They go on to earn around £60k just before being a consultant. That is for a basic 40 hour week. Except for all of my training and for theirs, full time is actually 48 hours a week. ⅓ of those hours are weekends or nights. So they can earn up to £75k once you account for the extra hours and a bump for unsociable hours. They get 37% extra for working hours between 21:00 and 07:00. So not even double time. They also get that for working on Sunday. Saturday is normal time
Working conditions have got much shitter over the years. Back in 2005 I remember being in Lewisham A&E at 5 am and it was totally empty of patients. We had a kick around with scrunched up paper towels taped in a ball. That would be unimaginable now. Weirdly some of this is a result of reducing hours worked in a week, I used to work 91 hour weeks but I got all of the shit stuff out of the way in 7 days (13 hour shifts each day split between nights and days). Now they only do 2 nights at a time so it actually screws up a lot more of your time off.
When I started we all paid 6% into a pension. Now it is tiered. I pay 13.5%. It used to be final salary, now it is career average.
I left med school with £40k of debt, they leave with £80k.
It’s a pretty shit life to be honest. A lot of my colleagues did not have kids until quite late.
If I had my time again, I probably would not do it. I love the medicine but the system is screwed. Consultants will be next on strike.
I am covering nights tonight and tomorrow. Doing it for time off in lieu. Not for extra cash.
