Resident doctors are back in dispute
The Doctors’ and Dentists’ pay review body, the DDRB, is late in making its pay recommendations.
Keeping to schedule was one of the key reforms the BMA negotiated as part of last year’s deal.
We wrote to Government on 2 April to express our concern about the DDRB’s failure to make its recommendations on time, along with the chairs of the Consultants and SAS Committees.
We gave the Government until 9 April to resolve the delay, but the report has still not been published. The UK Resident Doctors Committee has voted to re-enter dispute over the lack of an acceptable and timely pay offer for 2025/26.
Government proposes a below inflation pay offer: enough is enough
Pay erosion is still at 22.3%. Or, put another way, resident doctors are still working a fifth of their time for free.
The next phase of our campaign
After 11 rounds of historic strike action, we reached a deal with Government that set us on a journey towards pay restoration.
But the deal with Government was just the first step.
Why we are preparing to ballot again
As part of last year’s deal, the Government pledged to work with us to make medicine an attractive and rewarding career choice. Instead, they’ve proposed a below-inflation pay award of 2.8%. A real terms cut.
Does that sound rewarding?
2.8% equates to an extra 49p per hour for an FY1. Or 95p for an ST6.
Without a deal that justly represents the work of resident doctors, we have no choice but to keep fighting.
Campaign resources
Download a range of campaign materials to share on social media and in your communal work and rest areas.
How we got here
Our calculations show that pay awards for resident doctors in England have delivered a real terms (RPI) pay cut.
Resident doctors in England were guaranteed a 2% pay rise in 2022/23, as part of the multi-year pay deal agreed in 2019. This contract also brought an additional £90 million investment and many significant improvements on the 2016 contract.
From our perspective, the deal provided a guarantee of annual uplifts that were higher than those seen since 2008, in the context of an uncertain time due to the potential impacts of an impending Brexit. 82% of junior doctor members who voted in the referendum on the new contract, agreed to accept them.
However, the contract was agreed before the pandemic started and when inflation was below 2%. Our new calculations show that pay awards for junior doctors in England from 2008/09 to 2021/22 have delivered a real terms (RPI) pay cut of 26.1%, even accounting for total investment secured through the multi-year pay deal agreed in 2019.
Resident doctor pay analysis methodology - September 2022
Resident doctor pay restoration costing analysis methodology - January 2023
The DDRB themselves state that not applying pay award would have a significant impact on retention and more.
Doctors in training in England were once again excluded from the pay award process because their contract is still subject to a multiple-year pay deal, awarding them 2% for 2022/23.
This is in spite of the Framework Agreement for the 2018 contract negotiations, which established the current pay deal, explicitly stating that the DDRB is able to make further pay recommendations or observations on behalf of resident doctors in England where requested (8.1). They once again decided that because this group was not included in the UK Government's remit letter, they are unable to make formal recommendations on their behalf, allowing the UK Government to disregard them altogether.
While the 4.5% uplift would in any case be unsatisfactory, amounting to a likely 6% pay cut in the face of spiralling inflation, to exclude resident doctors in England from the award given to other NHS workers is nothing less than a betrayal of the profession.
As the DDRB themselves note, a decision not to apply an award to groups subject to a pay deal will have 'a significant effect on motivation, affecting retention, productivity, and ultimately patient care'. They actively state that the headline increase of 2%, set as part of the current deal, is 'likely not sufficient' to address those issues.
Enough is enough: The Doctor magazine spoke to a range of resident doctors about industrial action. Here are their stories.
In a series of interviews, Ben Ireland and Tim Tonkin speak to:
- Foundation year 1 Daniel Zahedi
- Foundation year 2 Vanya Gurr
- Foundation year 2 Alistair Ludley
- Foundation year 2 Vassili Crispi
- Registrar Ellen Newberry
- ST2 Priyesh Parekh
- ST3 GP registrar Ayesha Shafaq:
- ST4 registrar Kerrie Thackray
- Core surgical trainee Roshan Rupra
As of 18 September, all references to junior doctors in BMA communications have been changed to ‘resident doctors’.
Making up nearly 25% of all doctors in the UK, this cohort will now have a title that better reflects their huge range of skills and responsibilities.
Find out more about why junior doctors are now known as 'resident doctors'.
