Time to Strike?

Everyone is striking these days. The train drivers are always doing it. The posties are doing it this month. There are barristers and firemen talking about striking. More interesting in our case is doctors. The government has reccommended a 4.5% pay increase to doctors. However, not to all doctors. GP partners and doctors in training are not included in this deal. 

With inflation 10%+, most doctors are not happy with this increase, calling it insulting. The BMA's junior doctor arm have said striking is inevitable if things dont change. The arguement from the government that the junior doctor and GP contracts were made before these times of high inflation, though that is unlikely to sooth angry minds. I wonder if inflation was low and reccommended pay increases were low, that there would be such an issue. I was around during the last junior doctors strike regarding the contracts and pay, and it was interesting time. We still had to go to work but in hospital, a lot of elective lists were cancelled, but a lot of the emergency work (which junior doctors do anyway) carried on. At the time, it didn't seem effective but it must have worked a bit - it was resolved when junior doctors voted to accept a new 4 year deal, averaging a 2% pay increase over those 4 years as well as limits to weekends and hours worked. I doubt if a strike goes ahead now, similar terms would be accepted as an end to the strike, I wonder if the public who clapped us during the pandemic would be so happy with doctors striking with waiting lists so long, to get more money. 

For GP partners, it is a similar story. They are in the last year of a 5 year deal in which saw the GMS contract funding increase by 2.1% a year. However, the government has accepted a reccommendation by the DDRB (Doctors and Dentist's Renumeration Body) to increase the salaried doctors pay by 3% in 2021/2022 and 4.5% in 2022/2023. This puts partners in a tricky predicament as there isn't funding to increase their employee wages (let alone the increase in national insurance employer contribution on 1.25%). Some practices may feel they have to increase 4.5% or run the risk of their salaried doctors being unhappy and leaving. This will eat into the the partnership profits at the end of the day but salaried doctor's are not easy to come by and the GP partners are not keen on increasing their workload. 

I can't imagine GP partners would ever strike. Only junior doctors really have that power as they have less responsibility and have the benefit of youth on their side. The Daily Mail comment section would have a field day if GPs went on strike - "I wouldn't know the difference?", "Greedy lazy doctors", etc. I doubt the recent death of a GP who commited suicide due to the pressures of the job has made any difference to that. Is this the slow end of the the GP partnership model...

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