Deal agreed with British Medical Association’s resident doctors committee in England brings to an end years of industrial action.
A contentious and long-running dispute between resident doctors in England and the government over pay and jobs has finally been resolved. The BMA’s Resident Doctors Committee (RDC) voted to accept the government’s latest offer.
One key element of the offer was the government accepting the 3.5% pay rise recommended by the independent Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration. In fact, given the whole package of measures in the offer, resident doctors’ pay will rise by an average 6.6% by April 2027, with a further rise to follow at that point, based on the recommendations of the review body.
The government’s offer also included an effort to tackle the bottleneck in jobs, with 4,500 speciality training places to be made available over the next three years. The government also committed to cover exam, portfolio and mandatory medical royal college membership fees, an increased pay premium for medical academics, and guaranteed annual career progression for doctors who work less than full time who meet their competencies.
Some 32,932 doctors voted in the referendum on the offer, or some 57% of RDC members. By voting in favour, resident doctors in England have ended a dispute which has seen 15 rounds of industrial action since 2023. According to the government, each day of strike action cost the NHS £50m.
Even so, the RDC says it will continue to push for the restoration of pay for resident doctors to 2008 levels.
Similar disputes in other nations continue. For example, in Northern Ireland resident doctors undertook a 24-hour walk-out just yesterday.
Resident doctors comprise almost half of all doctors in England. They are qualified doctors who have completed a medical degree, which they must follow with two years of post-graduate foundation training; many then specialise in particular areas of medicine or surgery. Until 2024, they were known as ‘junior doctors’, but in 2024 the government agreed to the change of name in recognition of their professional expertise.
Jack Fletcher, Chair of the Resident Doctors Committee at the BMA, says: ‘Resident doctors have spoken. They have decided that the current offer is sufficient to continue on the road to pay restoration, and sufficient to address the absurd lack of jobs in the NHS. The strikes will now end.
‘These strikes did not need to happen. We spent far too long at loggerheads with the Government when a solution in everyone’s interest was waiting for us: more jobs for doctors, better pay for doctors, and a better-staffed NHS secured for patients well into the future. This is what constructive negotiations can achieve. Next time we hope they can be done without a single picket line having to form – all it takes is a government willing to think ahead and think creatively.
‘We hope there does not need to be a next time, however. Because this is by no means the end of the road for pay restoration: even with our progress in the last few years we are still nearly a fifth behind 2008 levels of pay. It will need determination from government to keep this journey going. We are putting the pay review process on notice – if it cannot deliver continued pay improvements, then we risk once again falling back into dispute in future. And without genuine delivery on the jobs front, we will once again see training bottlenecks throttling our careers and with it, further discord.’
James Murray MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, adds: ‘This is very good news for resident doctors, patients and the NHS as a whole, allowing us to draw a line under the disruption of previous months and focus on getting on with the job of rebuilding our health service.
‘Because of this deal, resident doctors will benefit from a new pay structure, better career progression opportunities and a range of other improved conditions to support them as they rotate and train. Patients will be relieved that the NHS is entering a period of greater stability.
‘But this is the beginning, not the end of the journey. I know there is much more to do, and I am determined to keep working constructively with resident doctors, all NHS staff, and the unions who represent them to improve their working lives and together build a health service that is fit for the future.’
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