Nostalgia and selective memory are clouding judgment on doctors’ strikes | Doctors

I write in response to Professor David Cameron (Letters, July 28). I also trained as a doctor in the 80s and in the early 90s and I experienced the long hours of work of this period. It is easy to fall into the trap of nostalgia and selective memory as we become older and detached from the front line. I was taken care of by the hospitals in which I worked, which were less managed than today. I worked in a nearby team, led by a consultant for whom I was responsible and who was responsible for me. I did not speak to any managers. I was provided with accommodation, hot dishes day and night and other privileges.

I speak to many young doctors of my current workplace and I see the conditions in which they work. They are isolated and harassed by managers, who are in turn harassed by a target -oriented culture. Their training is politicized and diluted by the doctor’s assistant program. They cannot have hot dishes after 4 p.m. or on weekends, they pay for parking, they are scammed by accommodation services at the hospital and see their wages eroded by prices lower than inflation for many years. No wonder they are angry. Compensation is the quickest way by which they can obtain some repair for the deterioration of the working conditions they have suffered.
Dr Robin Hollands
Consultant, Shrewsbury

As a foundation doctor of the year 1 (FY1) who almost finished my first year of medical training, I was deeply discouraged by the speech around the resident doctor. The British Medical Association (BMA) has failed to properly defend the changes that will improve the professional life of doctors and the media have been intensely critical of the current BMA objectives. It was exceptionally generous for the government to provide us with a salary increase of 22% last year, but current BMA requests for an additional 29% are completely unrealistic and seem deaf for the many other workers in the public sector who have received much less. It is therefore not surprising that many media have agreed that we are “greedy”.

Despite this, I believe that strikes are a representation of much deeper dissatisfaction with the current state of resident doctors and this must be addressed. Resident doctors across the country often work large hours on sub-efficient and dysfunctional hospital services, with prospects now progressive. The latest BMA figures that 52% of Fy2 doctors have no secure job from August are deeply shocking and is a system failure that could threaten the future of the NHS.

It is time for the BMA and the government to have won the reality that there will be a serious unemployment crisis of the doctor unless urgent measures are taken. This is the real problem that must be resolved. The restoration of remuneration should absolutely remain a long -term goal, but there are only few points improving my current resident doctor if there are no future paths for doctors resident in the NHS.
Dr Will Giffin
Sheffield