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The incompetence of the Consultants negotiating team was not my fault. As has been pointed out Nizam Mamode is now chairing the Consultants negotiators and I have great faith that he will help us to get a better deal for Consultants. The Staff and Associate specialists have broken away from the Consultants within the BMA which is probably a good thing for them but it will still take quite a while for them to put together a decent package. In the meantime many Trusts are offering to pay SGs the same as SpRs who was doing that rota or shift would get. A form of words can easily be written which means that if and when the national scale for SGs improves then they will revert to this. Technically this puts them outside National TCS but if you give them an otherwise standard contract it does not matter too much. As for juniors it has been suggested that the banding scheme had to be complicated because otherwise the DoH would have been able to realize how much it would cost them.... But it is a fundamental error to think that a payment of 150% of basic salary for working 48 hours a week means that 8 hours are being paid at 5 times normal rate. The 1.5 banding only applies if working a significant proportion of anti-social hours. The supplement is not a payment for the 8 hours "overtime" but for these hours AND the antisocial nature of many of the first 40 hours as well. Someone working all their 48 hours between 8am and 6pm Monday to Friday would receive a payment of 1.2 times basic salary ie standard time for every hour. Andrew Hobart Long since retired junior doctors leader -----Original Message----- From: Accident and Emergency Academic List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Adrian Fogarty Sent: 31 January 2003 01:16 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Trick & Teat is Dead ----- Original Message ----- From: "Simon Odum" Subject: Re: Trick & Teat is Dead > I'm new to the site but I must agree with Danny. All of our Staff Grades are > excellent and hard working, and are all earning significantly LESS than our > SHO's. I think that some seroius thinking needs to be done if we are to > attract more high quality Staff Grades. > Agree that AH DOES have a lot to answer for!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hold on a minute, why is everyone suddenly criticising AH? He did a damn good job for the juniors, and just 'cause the seniors and the career grades haven't got their house in order, is no reason to criticise his work. Admittedly the banding system is irritating in its construct; I imagine we'd all have preferred to continue with ADHs but with enhanced rates. The banding system was intended to be of a punitive/deterrent nature. Unfortunately it's "backfired" a little as most juniors are still working long hours, they're just getting paid ridiculous sums now which causes resentment elsewhere. Or else those who have reduced their hours have only done so at the expense of a sensible rota, i.e. now working split weekends or partial shifts or the like. The remuneration loading is supposed to be prohibitive but it just causes huge anomalies. For example, my SHOs work approximately 20% over standard hours (48hrs v 40hrs) yet they receive an 80% enhancement in pay (band 2A)! Similarly there are many who work 10% over standard hours (44hrs v 40hrs) yet they receive a 50% enhancement in total pay! Basically this amounts to quadruple time or "time by 5" for on call work respectively! I'm on the doctors' side yet even I think this is ridiculous! This simply puts these inexperienced and relatively pampered first years into the £40K+ bracket. This causes endless resentment among other grades who are more experienced, yet who only manage to earn in the low to mid £30Ks for the same amount of work but with higher levels of responsibility. And we wonder why we have a recruitment crisis among non-consultant career grades these days! But I'm still not sure we should somehow "blame" AH for this problem. But then again, maybe the Government were stung so badly by this, rather perfidious, deal, that they're now anxious not to get bruised again, and are putting up a real fight with the seniors. That's very sad really, and perhaps a touch short-sighted, especially when you consider that we are juniors for a very short time in the overall scheme of things. And those very juniors who won this particular battle are already now dug into the trenches of the seniors' war, where they'll be holed up for a lot longer... Adrian Fogarty