Yes, I'm pleased to see someone coming to the contract's rescue at last! And
I can understand where Rocky's coming from; it's quite unfair to speak of
principles Steve, a contract is as much a personal issue as it is a
consultant body issue, and everyone should be entitled to a free (and
secret) vote, regardless of their rationale. But Rocky's views are
illustrative; I always figured the contract would appeal to our more senior
colleagues. For example, I think Rocky is around the 21-22 year seniority
level, so he would get on to top "whack" within three years; now one can see
how tempting that would be. Whatever you might think of this approach, it
will clearly be prevalent among consultants aged 55 and above.
I disagree however with Rocky's comments on time-limiting our workload
(which he has since qualified). I believe we will continue to work in an
open-ended fashion regardless of the new contract. We're still going to
behave like professionals, we'll still care about our departments, our SHOs
and nurses, our patients etc. There will still be too much work with not
enough of us to do it, so we'll carry on working over and above our "agreed"
limits, this will not change.
Paul Ransom's point is very interesting, and I agree, I'd love to see my
consultant colleagues at evenings or weekends, but it's just the price that
bothers me Paul. Why is it that only a few years ago the BMA recommended
double time for out-of-hours work, now they're saying normal time is fine,
with time-and-a-third at best?
And Mike, wouldn't it be great if acad-ae-med counted as real work, I would
never post before 10pm again!
Adrian Fogarty
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