Until Tuesday, I’m once again working as a junior doctor: trying to remember how to take blood, print labels, and manage being bleeped by three wards at once, two of them by mistake. For my troubles, I’ll be earning £200 an hour – a rate far above standard consultant overtime. I’m taking a fat fee from the NHS to fumble through chores a junior could do better.

As you spend hours waiting to be seen by an overstretched medic moonlighting as a junior, remember this: the strikes are completely avoidable

Yes, junior doctors are on strike again – and the depressing thing is how preventable this walkout is. No money was needed; the NHS could have avoided the costs and harms of the strikes, and even come out ahead. That it didn’t is a fine example of how Britain contrives to fail.

Juniors’ wage

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