Give us more or we’ll strike again, warn junior doctors
Junior doctors will strike again if they are not awarded “full pay restoration” despite a 22 per cent deal, a senior figure at the British Medical Association (BMA) has said.
On Monday, BMA members voted to accept the offer from Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, of 22.3 per cent on average over two years.
But Dr Vivek Trivedi, the junior doctors’ committee co-chairman, said the deal was “a compromise” and “the first step towards our goal” to have full pay restoration.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Mr Streeting has talked about our pay falling behind inflation, and has talked about a journey to fair pay, and sees that journey occurring via the independent pay review bodies awarding their regular annual uplifts. He wants to restore confidence in that process, which doctors don’t have for a number of reasons.
“But if that process does play out the way he envisages, the way that maybe it used to in the past, and that does inspire the confidence of doctors, then of course there’s no reason for doctors to go back into dispute over pay and strike again.
“But if that doesn’t happen, and the Government does not correct that, and does not continue our journey to full pay restoration, which is what doctors have been calling for to keep their colleagues here so that medicine can remain an attractive profession in this country, then the Government will find doctors back in dispute.
“This offer puts a doctor who was before this, earning £15 an hour only on £17 now, which of course is an improvement, and it does mark the start of that journey – but the journey’s not over.”
Another BMA representative, Dr Robert Laurenson, echoed calls for an above-inflation pay rise.
He said: “I think the Government’s come into a position, into power, where they’ve got themselves in a pig-headed aptitude [sic] where they think that they’re making tough decisions rather than the right decision.
“The Government needs a period of time to understand the ramifications of their decisions, and that this deal, because it has no security for the future, won’t solve the retention crisis. What we’re saying is that if the Government doesn’t make significant progress towards pay restoration, then we need to be in a position to hold them accountable.”
The warnings threaten to undermine Mr Streeting’s attempt to draw a line under the industrial action that has hit the NHS.
Announcing the 22 per cent pay deal on Monday, he 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.”