Junior doctors will strike again ‘if we need to’ – BMA

More strikes by junior doctors are not off the table in the future, a leading medic has said.

It comes as junior doctors in England voted to accept a Government pay deal worth 22.3% on average over two years, bringing their long-running dispute to an end.

The British Medical Association’s (BMA) junior doctors committee in England has accepted the Government’s pay offer, with 66% of junior doctors voting in favour of the deal.

But Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chairman of the BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee, said “the journey is not over”.

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And committee co-chairman, Dr Robert Laurenson, said that junior doctors would be expecting an above-inflation pay rise next year.

Dr Trivedi told BBC Breakfast: “This is the first step towards restoring pay, which is all that doctors have wanted since the beginning of this campaign.

“As you’ll know, we’ve had a huge pay cut since 2008 but this marks a change in that trajectory.

“Doctors who were being paid just over £15-an-hour before this offer will now be paid a little over £17-an-hour, so it does mark an improvement, but the journey is not over.”

He added: “We want to hold on to our doctors, we want medicine to be an attractive profession so that they don’t escape to places like Canada and Australia and New Zealand.

“And this offer does not do everything in one go, but we’ve never asked for everything in one go, so as long as we continue on that journey, then we can inspire confidence for doctors to stay and to build back up our workforce so that we can bring healthcare back to a high quality system that it used to be.”

Dr Trivedi continued: “We will expect pay uplifts each and every year, as we have done in the past.

“And if those pay uplifts don’t occur in a timely fashion and at the pace that our members have asked for to restore our pay, then that’s when we’ll be going to the Government, we’ll be going to Mr Streeting and saying: ‘you wanted to inspire confidence in this process, this hasn’t inspired confidence in this process, what can we do to alleviate that?’

“And if those communications break down, then we will be thinking about going back into dispute and striking again if we need to, but that’s always a last case resort, and something we don’t want to have to do.”

Dr Laurenson said that a third of junior doctors who voted in the ballot felt that the deal “fell short”, adding: “The sentiment on the ground, from what I’ve been hearing, is that there is no security or certainty for the future.

“Our doctors need that security and that certainty for the future, which is why we’ll be having to look at April next year, the beginning of the new financial year, towards the pay review body’s recommendation to make sure that we maintain that pace towards pay restoration.

“If the pay review body does its job and respects and understands that medicine is no longer an attractive career, as it once used to be, and that it begins to try to fix the retention issues that we have, then there will be no need for further strike action.

“But if, as we see over the last 14 to 15 years, there’s more pay erosion, with real-terms pay cuts, I’m afraid we’ll have no option but to go back into dispute, because Mr Streeting would have overpromised and under-delivered.”

Asked what junior doctors would expect, he told LBC radio: “Well, it would have to be an above-inflation pay rise.”

He added: “I think the Government’s come into 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, it 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.”

Junior doctors in England have taken industrial action 11 times in the past 22 months, with their last strike just days before the general election.

Their last strike, which took place from June 27 to July 2, affected 61,989 appointments, procedures and operations.

The deal will see junior doctors’ pay rise by between 3.71% and 5.05% – averaging 4.05% – on top of their existing pay award for 2023/24. This will be backdated to April 2023.

Each part of the pay scale will also be uplifted by 6%, plus £1,000, as recommended by the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB), with an effective date of April 1 2024.

Both rises mean a doctor starting foundation training in the NHS will see base pay increase to £36,600, up from about £32,400.

A full-time doctor entering specialty training will have basic pay rise to £49,900 from about £43,900.

Outside the pay negotiations, the Government has agreed that from September 18, “junior doctors” across the UK will be known as “resident doctors” to better reflect their expertise, the BMA said.

Asked about the change in name, Dr Trivedi said: “(The term) ‘junior’ denotes many things, and I think people get the wrong impression and think, sometimes we’re students, sometimes we’re not fully qualified.

“And ‘junior’ – as we will be known until tomorrow – can represent any doctor from the year one of graduating, after five to six years of university, all the way up to 10 plus years in a specialty – these are people who might be doing cardiac surgery, brain surgery, seeing patients in complex cancer clinics for example, the work they’re doing is anything but junior.

“And so, (the term) resident doctor helps denote their expertise.”

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said on Monday he is “pleased” the BMA has accepted the Government’s pay deal.

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.”