Junior doctors are set to vote on a proposed 22 per cent pay rise despite admitting there is “further to go” to achieve pay restoration.
Medics have been taking strike action since 2023 in a bid to restore 2008 real terms pay, alongside nurses and ambulance workers who have also campaigned for pay increases.
After Labour’s election win on July 4, health secretary Wes Streeting met with the British Medical Association (BMA) with the aim of drawing the industrial action to a close.
The government has since offered the junior doctors a final pay offer of 22 per cent on average over two years in England, which is backdated to April 2023 and includes back pay – which the BMA is calling “credible” and recommending its members vote to accept.
“This offer marks significant progress in our journey to reverse years of pay erosion,” they told members.
Ministers have also agreed with the union that steps should be taken to ensure medicine remains an attractive career prospect; including addressing training bottlenecks, overall reward and progression, improving the rotational system, overtime pay and safe working.
A referendum will be held on whether to accept the offer, with the date yet to be confirmed.
But in a message to junior doctors – who could shortly be renamed resident doctors, to better reflect their role – the BMA said they are still planning the “second phase of our campaign”.
“Your committee believes that this offer is an opportunity to bank a pay uplift for doctors that represents a step towards our unchanged goal of full pay restoration,” they stated.
“We have an opportunity to reconsolidate our workplace power, strengthen our campaign strategy and replenish personal strike funds, ready for the second phase of our campaign.”
Junior Doctors’ Committee co-chairmen Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said: “This offer does not go all the way to restoring the pay lost by junior doctors over the last decade and a half.
“However, we have always said that we did not expect to get there in one go. This offer… changes the current trajectory of our pay, even though there is further to go yet.”
Shadow health secretary Victoria Atkins wrote in the Daily Express that the BMA “is already talking about more strikes for April 2025”.
She said: “The BMA’s plan to ‘bank these initial gains then build and go again in April 2025′ is a clear indication that this is only the beginning.
“The unions are emboldened by a government that won’t say no, and they will continue to push for more until they are stopped.”
While the Royal College of Nursing – the nurses union – has launched a consultation with members on the latest NHS pay review.
General secretary and chief executive Professor Nicola Ranger said: “When it comes to pay in the NHS, all professional groups deserve a clear route to fair pay restoration.
“We do not begrudge doctors their pay rise. We work together closely, in the interests of our patients. What we ask for is the same fair treatment from the government.”
Could the government – and patients – have to brace for more future walkouts?