Doctors in England are demanding a massive 29 per cent pay uplift to end the ongoing cycle of strikes that has caused “so much harm to patients and the wider healthcare system”.
Resident doctors in England, formerly known as junior doctors, have started receiving ballots for renewed industrial action following criticism of the government’s recent pay rise offer.
The fresh demands will pile further pressure on the chancellor ahead of next week’s spending review.
Rachel Reeves is facing mounting questions over whether or not she will be able to stick to her fiscal rules – restrictions the government sets itself to constrain its own decisions on spending and taxes – amid mounting spending demands.
Adding to the pressure, on Wednesday it emerged that police chiefs and MI5 have called for the government to give them more funding following the latest plans to release prisoners early.
The heads of the Metropolitan Police, MI5 and the National Crime Agency were among those who warned that plans to release prisoners early could be “of net detriment to public safety” in a letter to the Ministry of Justice, seen by The Times.
They argued they would need the “necessary resources” in the upcoming spending review to deal with the plan’s impacts and maintain order.
The pay demands from resident doctors come after ministers last week announced that most doctors would receive a 4 per cent pay rise following the latest review of public sector pay, with resident doctors to receive an extra £750 on top of the uplift.
But the British Medical Association (BMA), the union representing doctors, said the pay rise does not go far enough in restoring historical pay freezes, on Tuesday sending out ballots for industrial action.
The ballot closes on July 7, and if doctors vote for action then a mandate would last between July and January next year.
Co-chairs of the resident doctors committee urged doctors to vote for strike action, but said the door remains open for the government to come through with a solution.
It comes after the health secretary, writing exclusively in The Independent, admitted the NHS treats doctors “like crap” but urged medics not to strike in the latest row about pay.
Mr Streeting has warned that industrial action would push back the progress made on reducing waiting lists and should be a last resort.
“The NHS is finally on the road to recovery. I am urging resident doctors today: don’t set this progress back.
“Strikes should always be a last resort, and three above-inflation pay rises in a row means we are far from that. Instead, let’s keep pulling towards recovery”, he wrote.
Last year, resident doctors took 44 days of industrial action between March 2023 and July 2024, which was brought to an end when Wes Streeting handed them a 22 per cent pay rise.
And this year, they were awarded another inflation-busting pay rise of 5.4 per cent.
But warning that “fixing pay” for doctors “cannot wait for different fiscal circumstances”, they have now asked for their pay to be restored to 2008 levels, which they argue would require a 28.7 per cent rise when taking inflation into account.
Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt said: “Last week the government finally told us what it would do to restore the pay of doctors: almost nothing.
“Doctors have seen their pay decline by 23 per cent in real terms since 2008. No doctor today is worth less than they were then, but at the rate the Government is offering it would be over a decade before we once again reached that level of pay.
“As ballots once again fall through doctors’ letterboxes, we are simply saying: the NHS does not have that time. Waiting lists are too high, too many people can’t see their GP, too many patients are being treated in corridors.
“Doctors need to be kept in the country and in their career not in 10 or 20 years’ time, but now.”
Urging doctors to vote for strike action, they added: “By voting yes they will be telling the government there is no alternative to fixing pay – this cannot wait for different fiscal circumstances and a healthier NHS. The answer is to fix it today.”
The increase that was recommended by the independent pay review body is above the rate of inflation, which jumped to 3.5 per cent in April, up from 2.6 per cent in March and the highest since January 2024.
But Professor Philip Banfield, the BMA’s chairman of council, warned that doctors’ pay is “still around a quarter less than it was in real terms 16 years ago”, adding that the pay award “delays pay restoration even more, without a government plan or reassurance to correct this erosion of what a doctor is worth.”
