PoliticsJOE vs The Spectator on doctors' strikes | LBC Cross Question

these are not serious demands for payment and i am really fighting on this point on the grounds that they are picketing for better services for their patients on the NHS and patients' lives are being put at risk by the strike that we know is going to there will be horrible repercussions for those patients an estimated 350,000 appointments and procedures will be canceled in the next four days um women c-sections and c-sections are being canceled people are not getting their cancer diagnosis let's not pretend this is for the patients and if you want to talk about the salary, look at what your average Junior Physician is making, it's a pretty wide range from 25,000 lbs baseline to almost 70,000 lbs baseline and that's not before you figure out what they make extra for weekend work on social media night shifts on twitter this afternoon a second year junior doctor put in his £1823 a year payslip last month now there will be plenty of people listening to this show who aren't paid that much but if you, as Natalie said, if you're no matter how many years you've spent training, the student debt you've accumulated over those years could expect to earn a little more and we can say that about so many professions and then there are so few professions where your lifetime earnings will be close to what a doctor can earn so we need to factor in pensions here too the right taxpayers are on the line to pay 20 in doctor and nurse pensions so maybe we need to have a conversation about how much money they get up front at home let me finish it maybe we need to have a conversation to adjust the money they get up front compared to what we're paying into their pensions but there's a reason the allowance of for life was removed in the last budget to get more

doctors

back to work throughout their lifetime this is an extremely well paying profession many people will identify with not getting inflation based pay increases because the average pay increase in this country is below the rate of inflation that

doctors

do not receive Unique in this.

I think their working conditions need to be addressed in the same way as the conditions of the patients, but the idea that these are really low-paying jobs, especially over the course of life, is nice compared to other countries. they are and that's part of the problems compared to other countries and I would love to adopt some of those countries Health care systems right? Do you want to start talking to me about the German system? The Australian system. The Netherlands. You even want to talk about France. we can talk about why in those systems doctors get paid more money, but on the one hand you can't refuse to talk about reform, as Philip has mentioned, always say that's a back door to privatization, don't is, you can't call yourself a public servant and say I know I'm working for the state in this health care monopoly that we think is a public good and then on the other hand demand the kinds of salaries that you get from a freer market.

Medical care, you can't have both, that's what Kara wants. to know yes, well, I mean we can get into this, how would you pay for it, how would you pay for it, where do you find that money is taxed if those are the rich? where it's spent is a political choice, let's talk about the four billion pounds worth of unusable PPE, much of which went to Conservative party cronies, to donors, it's an ethical choice, how we spend the money in government and I would challenge the people in this country. that if they want to go out and they want to applaud the NHS during a pandemic when we were literally sending them to hospitals to deal with disease we knew nothing about, sometimes they use rubbish bags, those people deserve fair pay, they're no, they're not really asking for an extraordinary wage increase, they're asking for restoration of what they were paid in 2008, that's not an unreasonable demand, so do you think part of the solution might be for the government to come forward and say it's okay? we understand that you have lost this money since 2010. we accept that we accept that part of your argument we can't give you 35 now you don't expect it there is no way we can do that but in the next three four five years we will and this is the proposal, yes, now that for me it would be the logical waste it's called negotiation and I'm sorry everyone lost everyone it's not just the doctors it's not just the nurses everyone has lost and you can't point out a single covered expense as irresponsible as it was part of that expense.

I agree with you, you can't point to a one-off expense and claim that this is how you would fund a perpetual commitment which again is not just salary but on top of that is a massive pension and this is how you would fund it so seriously that both have said they would 35 is reasonable how would you finance it you financed three productivity increases one or none Sorry sorry let's try that like no I want to know how you finance it. the tragedies of our current situation is that our NHS performs very poorly by all sorts of international criteria in terms of health outcomes, from cancer to any number of chronic conditions, we have a very poor healthcare system where no one is in charge where no one wants to reform and where there is no net gain we also have an amazingly cheap healthcare system uh um if you look yeah if you look at GDP spending Americans spend double our GDP on their healthcare because it's very inefficient and it is private. the free market spent by the government is spent on the NHS, how much more would you like it to spend?

The point I'm trying to make is that our health services actually if you look at it in terms of GDP spent is one of the most efficient in terms of those numbers they're off the charts in terms of GDP spent what we have is a system systemically dysfunctional without reform and what the staff need to do is accept the need for large scale structural reform if it is to improve health and that is what is missing from any union good luck to any political party going to the next few elections and say we want structural reform with the NHS taking up Philip's point about our health outcomes which are absolutely terrible but the

question

is do you blame the NHS we have some of the worst housing in Europe we have a terrible diet we have a terrible air pollution all those things have all those things have an impact on people's health outcomes we also have a waiting list of 7.2 million the NHS I think the NHS probably 7.5 at the end of this I think we have some responsibility here to put an end to the fact that we as a society eat twice as many ready reels as the rest in Europe on average, we also have the second longest.

Europe working hours and previous coverage we had double the average continuous and terrible working hours and housing all you know makes people unhealthy because our society is unhealthy the NHS can't fix that just like schools can't they can fix the impacts of poverty and inequality on health and education I am going to be very unhealthy myself if I don't end this