How we have reached the point of re-entering contract negotiations
Between August 2019 and September 2022, the Welsh resident doctor committee (WRDC) was engaged in negotiations with the Welsh Government and NHS Wales Employers on a new contract for resident doctors working in Wales. These negotiations concluded with a proposed contract similar in core principles to the resident doctors’ contract in place in England, with several significant amendments and additions. In October 2022, this proposed contract was put to members in a referendum and was rejected, with 64% voting against the introduction of the contract on a 34% turnout. We therefore did not accept the proposed contract and instead prioritised our campaign for full pay restoration.
In April 2024, following three rounds of strike action by resident doctors, WRDC was invited to re-enter pay talks for the 2023/24 pay year. This resulted in an increased pay offer of 12.4% fully backdated to April 2023. When this offer was put to a referendum, 96% voted in favour of accepting the offer on a turnout of 73%.
As part of the offer, we also agreed we would re-enter contract negotiations with the Welsh Government with the ambition of reaching an agreement that would be put to members for implementation in 2025/26. During the pay talks, we made it clear that any renegotiation of the rejected 2022 contract proposal must address the significant concerns members raised regarding pay systems and working hours, alongside including appropriate investment.
Preparation for negotiations
We all know that the current contract is out of date and needs reform. It no longer works for resident doctors here in Wales. It doesn’t provide the protections we need, nor the modern working arrangements and training guarantees we deserve. However, in 2022, you made it clear that the proposed contract wasn’t good enough.
Understanding what you want from a new contract
Before re-entering contract negotiations, we knew it was vital to hear from you about your priorities for a new contract and how we should resolve the issues with the proposed 2022 contract and the existing 2002 contract.
To do this, we held a series of lunchtime listening events at hospitals and GP training sessions across Wales.
We also held an online workshop for those who were unable to attend on site or at lunchtime. At these sessions we focused on the most important areas of a new contract: pay progression, working hours, out of hours payments, and how you get paid for working more hours than you’re rostered for. We wanted to know what you thought could be done to improve these areas to make a contract fit for training today. We also launched an online survey in late 2024 to gather views from as many resident doctors in Wales as we could on the proposed areas for contract reform.
As well as hearing from you, we took time to review UK resident doctor conference policy and to consider other career contracts including SAS doctor contracts and resident doctor contracts in other countries. We’ve also been in discussion with colleagues in the Scottish resident doctors committee who are also currently in contract negotiations.
What is a negotiation mandate?
When we negotiate a new contract, not all members of the WRDC attend. Instead, we delegate the role of negotiations to a smaller group of negotiators. To ensure that what they negotiate reflects what the wider committee thinks you want from the contract, we first create a negotiation mandate to guide them.
In order to produce the mandate, we looked at all the information we had gleaned from the engagement events, the survey, as well as our evidence gathering on other contracts and existing BMA policy to determine the best solutions to the issues you had raised. The resulting mandate sets out what our negotiators should be aiming to achieve, and what they should not accept. It gives them space to make their own decisions about some issues to produce the best deal they can achieve.
Once they’ve done this, the deal will come back to WRDC to decide whether it fulfils the mandate the committee provided and whether it should be put to a referendum of the wider membership.
How are negotiators selected and trained?
All WRDC elected representatives were eligible to put themselves forward to be a negotiator. Those who applied as negotiators then underwent an assessment process conducted by expert negotiators to determine who would be best to represent WRDC and in what role. The whole negotiations team then underwent further training and development to ensure we have the most skilled negotiating team possible.
The negotiations team will also be supported by negotiations staff from BMA Cymru Wales who are well experienced in negotiating with NHS employers and the Welsh Government.
What happens now?
Negotiations with NHS Wales employers and the Welsh Government have now begun. We’ll continue to update you throughout with the progress of negotiations. Once our negotiating team achieves a final offer, it will bring this back to WRDC for its consideration. The committee will then determine if the proposed contract is good enough to put to you, our members, in a referendum. Your voice in the referendum will ultimately advise WRDC on whether or not to accept the proposed contract.
What about the campaign for full pay restoration?
Achieving full pay restoration remains the top priority for WRDC. For the current pay year, the Welsh Government announced its acceptance of the pay review body’s recommendations. This means that resident doctors’ pay has increased in the 2024/25 pay year by 6% + £1,000; an uplift of between 7.6% and 9.3%. This pay award is above the forecast RPI inflation figure for the year and therefore continues to restore our pay. It also means that over the last two pay years, we will have received a cumulative uplift of between 20.9% and 22.8%.
In a survey which we launched following the pay award announcement, you told us you were broadly satisfied with the pay award for 2024/25. Because of this, and the fact that this uplift continues our path to full pay restoration, we feel that the time is right to bank this pay uplift, further build up our organising capacity, and look at securing an improved contract for resident doctors working in Wales.
We have secured changes to how the pay review body operates going forwards. Therefore, for the first time in three years, we have contributed evidence to the DDRB (the pay review body for doctors and dentists). We remain committed to achieving full pay restoration and remain willing to call for further industrial action if future DDRB recommendations and subsequent pay awards by the Welsh Government do not move us towards this.
We anticipate the pay review body will deliver its report in the coming months, with a pay award by the Welsh Government to follow shortly after. To ensure we are prepared for every eventuality and that you receive the latest updates as they happen, please make sure your details are up to date today.
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