Our Medical Students need to be heard before we reach the point of no return.
Author: Altay Shaw
Artist: Jordan Mooney
Editor: Jordan Mooney
The 6th October marked the end of the latest period of strikes for junior doctors and specialists across the country. The mandate, which was approved on the 31st August, states the BMA’s full intentions of reaching full pay restoration and improved working conditions of all junior doctors in the UK. These strikes have not only brought to light the conditions doctors are being forced into but also cover the issues that the current final year medical students face.
Why are Junior Doctors Striking across the United Kingdom?
Since 2009, the real term pay of doctors across the United Kingdom has fallen by 26.1%, despite previous efforts by the British Medical Association (BMA) to increase total investment in 2019. The starting salary of £32,398 may seem reasonable, but after accruing debts across a minimum of 5 years at university, more than 50% of junior doctors were struggling to pay their utility bills.
Whilst media outlets will suggest that the ultimate cause of the strikes is pay, several reasons exist for the strike action. For example, there are currently over 10,000 vacancies in secondary care within the NHS. This may seem relatively small when compared to the over 125,000 vacancies in Hospitals, but shortages within Nursing have a direct impact on the workload that doctors are expected to do. This has resulted in some departments across the NHS having close to 70% empty positions within their training schemes.
Adding to the severe understaffing within different departments, medical staff also face unacceptable working conditions. Many doctors are unable to take lunch breaks, in part because some staff do not get time scheduled for breaks within their working hours. Numerous doctors state they do not have access to either catering or rest facilities when their contracts ask them to work out of hours. This is critical to highlight as the 2016 doctors’ contract made working weekends and night shifts part of the contract, where previously they had been separate from the main working hours. These conditions make working within the NHS as a junior doctor unhealthy, and at times, dangerous as suicides have been attributed to overwork.
How are the strikes impacting medical students?
The cost of living crisis has not solely impacted the livelihoods of doctors. Medical students across the country continue to watch the outcome of the strikes as their financial burden to complete their studies increases. A study carried out by the BMA in Scotland found that 73% of medical students surveyed stated studying at medical school had severely impacted their finances. Unlike other university courses, students are set to a high expectation of attending a full day at clinics and completing self study outside of normal hours. The physical demands can prevent students from holding part-time employment as students may spend a minimum of 40 hours per week on the wards.
On top of the workload, during the strike period in March of this year, medical students were being urged to cover for striking doctors. This was not solely limited to a few hospitals across the country; medical students here at UCL were asked to cover both during the nursing strikes and doctors’ strikes by hospital management in an attempt to reduce the strikes’ impact. Many doctors condemned these actions, stating that medical students have not received the necessary training or carry the necessary indemnity cover to protect them in the event a patient were to pass in their care.
It should also be noted that medical students are not allowed to attend strikes or join picket lines. Although visiting the picket lines, creating signs, and sharing posts is allowed, many medical students are actively discouraged from engaging in the strike action. The BMA has stated that students should continue to attend their placements as directed by their medical schools, and little protection is offered to students who go in during strike days. UCL still holds the line of wanting students to attend during the strikes, despite these practices having affected many on their placements.
Where do we go next?
With the announcement of the government’s plans to extend new strike laws to medical professionals across the country, it will become harder for the same number of doctors to take part in industrial action. Minimum service levels will aim to have a cover of care to “protect patient safety” when industrial action is called. As previously discussed, there are shortages across multiple trusts and departments, meaning most wards are already understaffed, causing great stress to those working in unaffected periods of time.
What the strikes have successfully done is demonstrate that the issues being faced by the junior doctors are also quintessential to the future of medical students across the country. As we face a potential exodus of doctors to other countries or out of medicine completely, the strikes have brought the struggles that are being faced by medical professionals to the public’s attention.
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