Junior doctors accept pay offer

Junior doctors in England have accepted the government’s pay offer, with 66% voting in favour of the deal.

Members of the British Medical Association (BMA) supported the offer of a 22.3% pay uplift on average across the two years of the dispute. This includes taking the pay uplift for 2023/24 to 13.2% on average, backdated to April 2023, with the remaining uplift in the recommended pay award for 2024/25 announced in July.

Since October 2022, junior doctors have taken 44 days of strike action across 11 separate strikes.

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting, who prioritised resolving the dispute in the weeks after Labour’s general election victory, said: “We inherited a broken NHS, the most devastating dispute in the health service’s history, and negotiations hadn’t taken place with the previous ministers since March.

“Things should never have been allowed to get this bad. That’s why I made ending the strikes a priority, and we negotiated an end to them in just three weeks.

“I am pleased that our offer has been accepted, ending the strikes ahead of looming winter pressures on the NHS. This marks the necessary first step in our mission to cut waiting lists, reform the broken health service, and make it fit for the future.”

The government’s announcement states that NHS strikes have cost the taxpayer almost £1.7billion since last April and led to 1.5 million cancelled appointments.

In the BMA’s statement on the pay offer, it points out that doctors remain behind in real terms compared to 2008.

The BMA’s junior doctors committee co-chairs, Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, said: “It should never have taken so long to get here, but we have shown what can be accomplished with our determination and with a government willing to simply sit down and talk realistically about a path to pay restoration. One strike was one strike too many.

“This deal marks the end of 15 years of pay erosion with the beginning of two years of modest above inflation pay rises. There is still a long way to go, with doctors remaining 20.8% in real terms behind where we were in 2008. Mr Streeting has acknowledged our pay has fallen behind and has talked about a journey to pay restoration. He believes the independent pay review body is the right vehicle for this, and if he is right then no doctor need strike over pay in future. However, in the event the pay review body disappoints, he needs to be prepared for the consequences.

“The resident doctors committee, as we will be called, will be using the next months to prepare to build on their success so that future cohorts of doctors never again need to see the kind of pay cuts we have. We thank all doctors who have seen us through to this point by standing on picket lines and fighting for their worth. The campaign is not over, but we, and they, can be proud of how far we have come.”

Junior doctors title changing to ‘resident doctors’

The BMA has also announced that from 18 September all references to junior doctors in its communications will be changed to ‘resident doctors’.

This follows previous votes to abolish the term ‘junior doctor’, while ‘residents’ as a replacement was approved at the BMA’s Annual Representative Meeting earlier this year. Read more on the BMA website