Junior doctors vow to keep striking as pay offer 'means just 84p extra an hour'
Junior doctors have vowed to strike for as long as it takes after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak imposed a 6% “final offer”.
The British Medical Association blasted the offer as “derisory” insisting it equates to just 84p an hour extra for new doctors.
The first day of a five-day strike saw NHS England reveal its backlog has increased to a record 7.5 million appointments despite Mr Sunak’s pledge to get the waiting list down.
He told a Downing Street press conference the Government would refuse to negotiate with doctors and instead impose a 6% rise, along with an additional consolidated £1,250 increase.
Mr Sunak said: "Today's offer is final. There will be no more talks on pay. We will not negotiate again on this year's settlements and no amount of strikes will change our decision."
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Dr Arjan Singh, BMA junior doctors committee co-chair, said: “This offer equates to an extra 84p an hour for a year one junior doctor. It is derisory and inadequate. My WhatsApp is flooded with messages saying this pay offer is insulting. We’re not accepting this offer and will be out on picket lines as planned.”
A BMA representative said the pay offer of 6% was "insulting" (Guy Bell/REX/Shutterstock)The BMA is currently balloting junior doctors for a mandate to continue strikes until March 2024. Dr Singh added: “We will find a way but this is going to be a long dispute. The sentiment is exceptionally strong. We will reballot and reballot and reballot as many times as it takes.”
Placard waving doctors at picket lines up and down the country are calling for a similar above-inflation pay agreement to that offered to medics in Scotland. It is the start of the most disruptive period of industrial unrest in NHS history with junior doctors, consultants and radiographers striking in the next fortnight as hundreds of thousands appointments will be postponed.
Junior doctor Rebecca Lissman, 29, from East London, works in obstetrics and gynaecology. “Striking wasn’t an easy decision,” she told the Mirror. “But at the moment I work in a service where a third of trainees drop out. There are shifts every week unfilled. I recently had a weekend where I did two long days on call. Normally you are supposed to be partnered but I had to do the job of two doctors.
“We got lucky but it didn’t feel safe. Things like this are happening all the time across the NHS. We need a properly staffed service. When we’re striking I’m keeping in mind not just the patients today but the patients I’m hoping to treat in the years ahead.”
Patient Ben Pester, 43, was attending University College London Hospital after breaking his ankle playing football. He told the Mirror: “I support them completely. They should be paid a fair amount that matches inflation. The Conservative Party have forced them in to this. People working in the NHS basically kept the country going during the pandemic and we should look after them.”
Patient Zbigniew Korrskorun, 54, from Walthamstow, was attending the hospital for follow-up tests after suffering a heart attack and stroke. He said: “They deserve to get paid properly because they do such a hard job. We can’t have NHS staff having to use food banks.”
Dr Arjan Singh (right), BMA junior doctors committee co-chair, said the offer was "derisory and inadequate" (Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)Mr Sunak said the 6% award is recommended by the NHS Pay Review Body which NHS unions say they have lost confidence in. They dispute its independence given its expert members are decided by Government which also sets the parameters of what it is required to consider.
Dr Naru Narayanan, president of the HCSA union, which also represents striking junior doctors, said: “Instead of serious negotiation on doctors’ pay we’ve had a grandstanding PR stunt which remains scant on detail. The Government has known the pay review body recommendations since May, but is still sitting on its detailed findings. This underlines why we are calling for root and branch reform of the system. The petulant refusal to negotiate we’ve heard from the Prime Minister today won’t help at all… there is a way to resolve this but that’s going to require serious discussion.”
The Government had initially proposed a 3.5% pay rise to the review body and insisted anything above this must be funded from cuts to existing NHS budgets. Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “Unless this increase is funded in full, this announcement does nothing more than wield an axe to the NHS’s already constrained budget and potentially allow industrial action to disrupt patient care for the foreseeable future.
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“The Government cannot say that it is committed to cutting waiting lists and supporting the NHS’s workforce and then not give the NHS the investment it needs to support the new pay award.”
The UK Government has demanded the BMA stop planning further strikes before it will restart pay talks. The BMA says junior doctors’ pay has dropped by 35% in real terms under the Tories and any 2023/24 deal should be viewed as a first step to restoring this.
However ministers are insisting the BMA must abandon this negotiating position before they will negotiate. The CPI measure of inflation is currently 8% in the UK.
The three-year deal agreed in Scotland will see junior doctors guaranteed a minimum pay uplift of inflation every year, including a 12.4% increase for 2023/24. The devolved Scottish government has also committed to negotiate further annual pay rises on top of inflation that must “make credible progress on the path towards pay restoration”.
BMA Scotland has halted planned industrial action while it ballots members whether to accept the deal. However Mr Sunak has insisted any such above inflation deal for England is unaffordable.
The PM said: "We have plans in place to continue working on backlogs, but without the industrial action ending of course that will be more difficult. And that's why I would urge consultants and junior doctors to accept the recommendations of the independent pay review body. This is not even the Government, this is the independent pay review body who has made a recommendation on their pay, which we have accepted in full.”
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