NHS doctors and GPs will push for a whopping 30 per cent pay rise, it was decided today.
Members of the British Medical Association (BMA) have asked their union to lobby ministers for a massive pay hike over the next five years. They believe doctors have been shortchanged by ‘millions’ in real terms since 2008 due to inflation.
Doctors said they were prepared to join ‘picket lines’ to achieve pay restoration and admitted that industrial action was ‘likely’.
Members voted in favour of the motion at the BMA’s annual meeting in Brighton. The union will now be mandated to push for the salary increase for all doctors, including GPs who make £100,000 per year, on average.
So far ministers have ruled out bowing to unions on pay, arguing that broad salary rises would only add fuel to Britain’s spiralling inflation.
The Treasury has told public sector workers they should instead expect rises around the 3 per cent mark.
It comes as criminal law barristers walked off the job today demanding a 15 per cent pay rise and follows last week’s disruptive rail strikes — dubbed the worst since the 1970s — which brought the nation to a standstill.
Teachers unions and the civil service are also being balloted on potential industrial action to add to Britain’s ‘Summer of Discontent’.
Dr Emma Runswick who presented the motion for a 30 per cent restorative pay rise said doctors deserve a salary capable of giving them ‘comfort and pleasure’
Dr Joanna Sutton-Klein said if members voted for the motion she would ‘see them on the picket line’
It follows threats of strike action from junior doctors this winter if the Government fails to offer them a similar pay rise of 22 per cent.
Other grumbles of discontent are coming from the Royal College of Nursing who are seeking an inflation busting pay rise of 14 per cent.
Unison — which represents 500,000 NHS and social care workers — has also warned of industrial action unless pay rises match inflation.
Dr Emma Runswick, from the BMA’s Manchester and Salford division, said inflation, which is currently at about 9 per cent but predicted to rise further, essentially meant doctors were essentially working for free due to a lack of a pay increase.
‘That’s equivalent to losing a whole month of pay, a whole month you are working for free compared to last year,’ she said.
‘We should not wait for things to get worse, all of us deserve comfort and pleasure in our lives.’
She added doctors were under no illusions that winning such a pay rise would be easy, and that industrial action would have to be on the cards.
‘It won’t be easy to win,’ she said. ‘It’s likely that industrial action will be required.’
Dr Runswick said such action was needed if the profession wanted to stop the NHS hemorrhaging doctors.
‘If we do nothing we will see pay halved, doctors in financial difficulty, demoralised and leaving,’ she said. ‘We are worth more, you are worth more.’
Critics have previously described the BMA union as acting ‘militant’.
Dr Joanna Sutton-Klein, who spoke in support of the motion, said those who thought a 30 per cent pay rise was ‘outrageous’ were wrong.
‘Some people might think the demand for full pay restoration is too high, some might even think it is outrageous,’ she said.
‘It is outrageous our pay has been cut by 30 per cent, it is outrageous that while our pay continues to be cut our wages are being siphoned to growing numbers of overpaid managers and the £37 billion failed Test and trace programme.
‘It is outrageous that doctors today are unable to afford mortgages and are delaying starting families due to our falling pay.’
She even went so far as to hint doctors may strike similar to rail unions to achieve their goals.
‘We working people are paying the cost of the inflation crisis while the richest in this country are continuing to horde obscene levels of wealth,’ she said.
‘All around us train unions are coming together and winning big. Vote for this motion and I’ll see you on the picket lines.’
The latest NHS data shows there is a shortage of 8,000 medical posts in England as of March this year.
NHS England has lost the equivalent of 2,000 full-time GPs since 2015 and there are now an average of 2,200 patients per family doctor.
Additionally, a snapshot poll of GPs earlier this month showed half of family doctors plan to retire by the age of 60.
The Royal College of GPs said almost half of family doctors are planning to quit by 2027 in a major threat to patient care.
It insists general practice is ‘significantly under-staffed, under-funded and overworked’, leaving the service and profession ‘in crisis’.
In comes over increasing concerns about the availability of family doctors, who earn an average of £100,000 per year, with many Britons struggling to see their GP face-to-face similar to pre-pandemic.
If doctors do opt for industrial action, it will be the first time since the junior doctors strike in 2016.
A dispute with then health secretary Jeremy Hunt over changes to junior doctors’ contracts was the first time in 40 years that England’s medics had taken to the picket lines.
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