Hans Bromwich, Cowes:

Are alarm bells ringing yet as we quietly slip into becoming a third world country with poverty wages? 

The BMA say that junior doctors have seen their pay eroded by over a quarter since 2008.

The government has announced its intention to train more doctors, but has not committed to restoring doctors pay, indeed junior doctors are expected to endure further hardship with a derisory below inflation pay offer.

Presumably the government’s plan is to further undermine our NHS with miserly levels of pay in a bid to drive medical professionals into the private sector.

My daughter in law is a specialist nurse in the USA, she earns up to $250 an hour.

Junior doctors in the UK can earn as little as £14 an hour, or around $18 an hour. Let those figures sink in for a minute.

You don’t have to be Einstein to workout what’s likely to happen. 

 

For years our NHS has benefited by recruiting medical professionals from poor countries like the Philippines. Are we, like the Philippines, about to see a mass exodus of our home grown medical talent?

Will we see newly trained junior doctors choosing not to work in the NHS, or the UK’s private medical sector, but deciding instead to move abroad, where conditions of service and pay are considerably better?

It would be nice if Rishi’s government stopped playing games, and used some money to pay those who gave so much throughout the pandemic a proper dignified wage.