Junior doctors are grossly underpaid - let's correct that

I’d likely have mumbled something along the lines of them getting paid enough already. I mean doctors get well-paid, don’t they?

Were anyone to ask me now, my answer would be entirely different.

Junior doctors returned to work on Tuesday after walking out for five days - the longest strike in NHS history.

They want their pay to be raised by around 35 per cent to reflect its erosion since 2008. The rise would restore their pay to the level it should have reached since then due to inflation. MPs’ pay has rocketed in comparison.

Rishi Sunak would do well to step into the shoes of a junior doctor. Not just for an hour, a week or month, but for a few years, to see for himself what these people put themselves through, for scant reward.

My eldest daughter is a junior doctor and I have been shocked and appalled by the mountains she has to climb and the responsibility of the job, for so little in return.

Training to become a junior doctor is gruelling. It’s five or, in my daughter’s case, six years of university. That’s double the study period of most students. Doctors have astronomical student loans: my daughter’s is more than £80,000, with substantial deductions from her monthly salary - barely making a dent due to the high interest attached to such loans.

A first-year doctor, after medical training has a starting salary of £29,384 - around £14 per hour - not a king’s ransom given the challenges of the role. Graduates in many other sectors, whose job descriptions go nowhere near saving lives, start on far more.

Out of this wage doctors pay various fees including compulsory membership of medical bodies and fees for cover in potential litigation. Then there are exams, which come thick and fast and, disturbingly, must be paid for by the junior doctor. They’re not cheap - we’re talking thousands. This came as a shock to me. And on top of all this, there’s the cost of living.

I naively assumed that a junior doctor would remain so for three or four years before progressing to the next level. Not so - many doctors are junior until well into their forties. Almost all doctors who are not consultants are junior doctors.

Junior doctors fulfil challenging roles

One of the worst aspects of the job is the constant need to move job and location. It seems crazy, but junior doctors usually stay in one place for only a short time, from around four months to two years. Although they can state a preference they get little say in where they end up. Many moves necessitate interviews and admissions tests and some people end up with no job.

It’s endless stress and, while I am immensely proud of my daughter, I am also permanently worried about her.

Junior doctors work incredibly long hours in challenging situations. Anyone who watched the brilliant TV drama This is Going to Hurt, created by former junior doctor Adam Kay, will have gained an insight. It was very close to the bone, I am told.

Is there any wonder that so many junior doctors are fleeing to Australia where they are better appreciated and properly rewarded?

I sympathise with people on waiting lists whose treatment is affected by strikes, but what other option is there? Anyone who dips their toe into the life of a junior doctor would back this action. Pay that properly reflects the role would lead to retention of jobs and impact favourably upon patients.

Am I biased? No - I simply know the facts. Do junior doctors deserve more? You bet they do.