Junior Doctors to Strike Until January 2026 to Demand 29% Pay Rise – Despite Receiving 22% Last Year
Junior doctors have voted to strike until January 2026 to demand a 29% pay rise, despite receiving a 22% rise last year, in a move that will see thousands of NHS appointments and operations cancelled. The Telegraph has more.
Resident doctors have voted to strike again in a blow to Wes Streeting’s 10-year health plan.
The medics, formerly called “junior doctors”, have a new mandate for industrial action until January 2026 as they demand a 29% pay rise.
NHS leaders warned it risked “jeopardising” the crucial 10-year plan, unveiled last week by Sir Keir Starmer, which set out ambitions to transform the NHS into a digital and community-based service with easy access to GPs and dentists.
Mr Streeting, the Health Secretary, will meet the resident doctors’ leaders on Tuesday afternoon but officials said there were no plans to negotiate on this year’s pay rise of 5.4%.
Consultants and nurses have also threatened to strike over pay and conditions in recent months.
It comes less than a year after the residents were awarded a 22% pay rise.
They are now demanding a further pay rise of 29% to return them to the “real terms” pay levels of 2008.
Members of the British Medical Association (BMA) voted by 90% in favour of more walkouts, which could begin as soon as this month.
Some 55% of eligible doctors took part in the vote. With 26,766 members voting yes out of the 53,766 that were entitled to vote, it means fewer than half support strike action.
Matthew Taylor, the Chief Executive of NHS Confederation, which represents health organisations, said the Government had set out an “ambitious roadmap of how the NHS is going to balance the need for short-term improvement against long-term reforms”.
But, he said, “resident doctors downing tools risks jeopardising both of these goals as it could see tens of thousands of appointments and operations cancelled”.
He said strikes would jeopardise plans to turn around “the perception that the health service is not there when people need it” and “could lead to further falls in public satisfaction with the NHS”.
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, last month announced the NHS would get a record £29-billion boost to its annual budget in her Spending Review.
However, recent increases to NHS funding – such as the £22.6 billion uplift announced last October – have almost been swallowed up by pay rises.
With about half of the NHS’s £190 billion in funding going on staff wages, more above-inflation pay rises for doctors and other staff will take funds away from those needed to carry out plans to reform the service.
Worth reading in full.
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Pure unadulterated greed, no such thing as the “caring” proffession or a vocation this is just a job , should hang their heads in shame, but as I said, they just dont care!
The same people who prescribe drugs, drugs, drugs, for ’emoluments’ and personal gain. Not a clue about holism, the body, or how our organs actually work.
Sack the lot of them and offer rehire on terms that ban strike action…
Also ensure none of those sacked get the paperwork (I think it’s a certificate of good standing?) to allow them to practice abroad until ALL student loans are repaid in full
None of them see the irony of moving to countries with better pay (which charge more for training so their staff start with higher debts) but also use an insurance system which they insist introducing for the NHS will ruin it…
My daughter’s fiance is a doctor – a lovely lad and now aged around 30. How the NHS works to me is a mystery – but he seems to be employed on fixed length contracts and chops and changes what he does – from working with children, the elderly, as a GP and so on. He looks for contracts that are – at most – 4 days a week, as that pays more than enough for him. If he needs money in a hurry – he just does a weekend shift in A&E for an agency. One weekend earns him enough for a holiday.
So, whereas a newly trained doctor may not earn huge amounts of money whilst they gather experience, they’ll certainly earn well in the following years with retirement in their fifties on a fat pension as a potential final destination. I’m afraid I have zero sympathy.
Another issue is that it is actually legal in the NHS to work for another firm part time, in parallel with itself. Unusual in many industries, for commercial reasons. It can be good for patients, if they can afford the fees. As a patient, I’ve used that myself in the past, when I had suitable insurance with my employer at the time. I saw exactly the same consultant privately at a private place just down the road from the NHS site that he also worked at. I would have been on a waiting list one way, but a couple of days via the other route. His prescription was a bit expensive at the pharmacy, though!
Why are they so bloody entitled?! Not doctors, these lefty young people.
I’m 36, I’ve worked since I was 16 and I’ve always understood that you need to work through the shit to earn pay and respect.
In my industry it’s impossible to hire staff who want to work, they all expect a 4 day work week, “duvet days”, rewards and pats on the back for just doing what they were hired to do. Any criticism is taken personally and the first thing they do is post it somewhere publicly for all they other lazy entitled slugs to agree with them and try to shame the workplace.
It’s all about them, not about care or empathy. The key trait a doctor needs – and these immature, narcissistic, self entitled little shits don’t have it.
Once one section of the population has a luxury, they all want It. And why not, if it can be afforded. But that is only true where market forces still exist. And in the public sector there isn’t, with fiat currency printing exacerbating the problem.
And then, in that situation, when money isn’t a constraint, why plan, why seek value for money, why, indeed, strive for value for money?
I’m sure that very few people are earning the same as they did in 2008 in “real terms” hence the cost of living crisis. Why do junior doctors think they’re so special they should get what most other people don’t? As Cameron said “we’re all in it together”, unless you’re wealthy enough to be able to afford a good accountant and move your money offshore. When he made his comment Cameron’s dad had £8-10million in offshore tax havens.
The problem wasn’t Cameron’s dad having £8-10 million in offshore tax havens, it was that the rest of us didn’t.
Sack ’em all, then re-hire on self employed contract.
Ghastly. I’m embarrassed by my former profession
Sack them. Privatise the Industry, set up an Insurance sheme as in other Countries. It will save the country billions and make these entitled people wake up.
Does anyone know what a junior doctor is? Have they completed med school and clinical training? Do they carry an MD behind their name. No idea what the “ junior” stands for.
I believe they have completed university/medical school and have a degree, but it’s into the deep end and considered to be a couple of extra years of practical training. They used to be called junior/senior housemen I believe, that’s probably considered transphobic these days. Then I think they were called F1s and F2s, looks like now we are going fully American and calling them “residents”.
Junior doctors are doctors below consultants so that includes someone who has a medical degree (5 years) and passed the registrar exams (another 2 years). Senior registrars are often left in charge of NHS hospitals at weekends with consultants ‘at the end of a mobile’.
The title is being changed to Resident as per the USA.
When I entered the teaching profession, a few decades ago, I knew that I wouldn’t receive a huge salary in the state system, but that I could expect to progress and receive a good pension at the end, plus decent holiday entitlement (albeit at the most expensive times of the year). In full knowledge of that, I made a conscious decision to go ahead. The same must surely be true for junior doctors entering their profession today?
Part of the problem is the current government’s capitulation to the unions’ demands last year, as a quid-pro-quo for their help in winning the election. You’ll never get rid of a blackmailer by paying up; they’ll just keep coming back for more. The unions work in exactly the same way.
I think Covid gave a lot of doctors/NHS staff a bit of a hero complex, kind of understandably given how much they were worshipped during all the bollox – banging pots and pans, “our” NHS heroes, free shopping and discounts etc. I guess these juniors are milking it for all it’s worth.
No job in this country is compulsory. if you don’t like the pay or conditions leave and get a different one.
Back in the old days , it was the norm to work for the public sector for a lower wage than the private sector, as you got a better index linked (and retire at 55) pension. Now they all seem to want private sector wages AND the decent pension.
What is the NHS Confederation?
“We empower and support healthcare organisations to improve population health, deliver high-quality care and reduce health inequalities.”
So that’s clear then. Their income in their latest accounts was £22 million.
This is the real problem with today’s NHS. It is a fragmented mess of overlapping organisations, none of which actually have full accountability for delivering healthcare.
In their quotes in this article, they appear to be speaking for “NHS employers” – and this, remember, at a time when NHS England was supposedly in charge of the NHS.
Fire them.
By all means give them the pay rise they demand BUT point out that no extra money will be made available to fund this so the number of junior doctors will need to be reduced.