Doctors' salaries should be cut

[AB Asks]

A health economist has proposed that doctors' pay should be slashed if they do not meet targets. Alan Maynard, professor of health economics at York University, also suggested reducing doctors' salaries by two per cent. He believes that this 'target approach' will provide motivation for better performances from doctors. However, doctors believe this kind of approach would 'foster low morale'. Do you think doctors should work on incentives � the better they work, the more they earn? Or should we just let them get on with their jobs and give them the money they deserve?

[anotheoldgit]

If they upset the doctors too much then they might do the same as the dentists have done, and that is withdraw from the NHS.
But then perhaps the goverment would like this, they would still charge the same in NH contributions, as they did when the dentists withdrew.
Then it would be the same story if you was on those magic words 'On Benefits' you would get free doctors, along with the free dentists they get now.

[Gromit]

In France, Doctors are paid about �30K, here the average is over �100K. So is Healthcare far worse in France than in the UK? Well No, it is far better, the World Health organisation rating it the best in the world.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender .fcgi?artid=1127464

From my own personal experience, it is impossible to get an appointment with my GP until I am better??

I think it is clear, we are being ripped off by the current UK system.

[Gromit]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml =/news/2007/02/01/ndocs01.xml

[anotheoldgit]

Yes we are certainly ripped off Gromit. Looking back at one time you did not need to make an appointment, just go along to the surgery and wait your turn.

If you were too ill to attend, yo just had to pick up the phone and the Doctor would pay a visit to your home while on his rounds.

If you needed him during the night, once again you would get the Doctor who was on duty to pay you a visit. No need to ring NHS Direct and maybe get some Doctor you do not know. (That is if you are lucky, most times some Nurse will try to cure you over the phone, rather than disturb a Doctor).

What has gone wrong?

[libertie]

Much also seems to depend on where you live! My practice has just over 9000 patients and seven doctors 4 full time and 3 part time. If you phone early enough in the morning you can almost always get an appointment for that day! On Monday for example I phoned at 8:45am and got an appontment for 2:40pm that day and it wasn't even an emergency! However you can't make an appointment too far in advance! Not sure what happens with an out of hours call though!

[johnny37]

I read recently in the Sunday papers that of the 90% of GPs who opted out the the 'out of hours' service, half of them are instead doing out of hours work for agencies or direct to PCTs at �500 to �600 per shift (more on Saturday nights and bank holidays). On top of an average salary of �118k per year does that make any sense to anyone?

[scruffscat]

Bloody marvellous, poor doctors....Lets cut the England footy players wages shall we cos theyre ***** at their job, oh god,no soz, noone dare suggets that do they

[Gromit]

Poor Doctors? - Who they?

[joko]

what have footballers wages got to do with this???

when the government start paying footballers out of our taxes, then you can have a little rant....

[jno]

what is a 'target' for a doctor? If you want to make it measurable, it would have to be number of pills prescribed or number of patients seen, when what is needed is the oppsite: a doctor should see as few patients as possible but for as long as possible. I went to a doctor while abroad recently. He asked me about my doctor at home; I said I hadn't seen him for a year - it's always locums, or the practice manager for repeat prescriptions - and he said, well, you haven't actually got an NHS doctor, have you? He was right. Like Gromit, I can't see him till I'm better - minimum a week's notice. When I'm ill I go to A&E now.

[scruffscat]

joko, im not rantin, just leave the bloody doctors alone and let them do their job, they and all the nurses out there are worth their weight in gold.Why do people see fit to interfere and suggest pr pay. As for my comment on footballers i was merely statin a point relatin to this as noone else seems to ever suggest it, doctors do a far more important job,no?

[mrrobbo15]

after spending 4 weeks in hospital, i would cut nurses pay, 9 out of 10 were hopless and rude.

i hate saying this but i know cuz i was there

[joko]

i agree scruffs, of course the nurses should have better pay and they do a more important job than footballers, but footballers pay has nothing to do with this, if the clubs want to pay ridiculous amounts for a player, that it up to them - the government, NHS, taxpayers etc have nothing to do with it.
you seem be under the impression that there is a government fund paying for football!

[johnny37]

Missing the point but here goes. Footballers are overpaid but they are being paid the rate for the job (except when they play for England). It was the same when i worked in banking. Footballers pay pales when you compare it to the vast wealth of some of the sanctimonious pop stars who appeared on Children In Need and Red Nose Day. Some of them dont even live in this country to abvoid taxes.

[scruffscat]

Rant dear,who dear, me dear, no dear :o)....oh by the way i do actually no the gov. doesnt pay footy wages ...honest.

[Cider-Man]

Grommit is perfectly correct. Not only are UK Doctor's grossly overpaid, but they get an almost free education (US doctors may be a little better paid but their med school costs etc can mount up to over 100k in fees only) and UK GPs are almost unique in being "self-employed" (ie without a boss) but are allowed to be in an employer's (ie the NHS) fully index-linked government protected pension scheme. Also with Nurses, my impression is that (barring highly specialised areas) we have far too few of them but they too are too highly paid. We don't need Nurses with degree-level education on �25k - �30 k, we need more of them on lower salaries to take people to the toilet when they need to go not 10 minutes after they've 'gone' etc etc.

[joko]

lol scruffs