Junior doctors’ vote to strike, threatening Britain’s hospitals amid pay dispute
Junior doctors rejected a 5.4 per cent pay rise, seeking 29 per cent due to pay erosion, which may disrupt hospitals, but the union believes strikes can still be avoided
Junior doctors in England have voted in favour of taking strike action, their trade union said on Tuesday, threatening Britain’s hospitals once again with disruption just as the government said it had started to improve services.
Junior doctors, also known as resident doctors, voted for industrial action after they were offered an average 5.4 per cent pay rise by the government, far below the 29 per cent they say is necessary to address years of salary erosion in real terms.
The fresh threat of strikes comes after the doctors accepted a 22 per cent pay rise last year covering 2023 to 2025, ending months of previous disruptive strikes.
Junior doctors say that due to the long-term erosion of their pay and after several years of high inflation, they still need a 29 per cent rise this year to help restore it to levels last seen in 2008.
“Doctors have spoken and spoken clearly: they won’t accept that they are worth a fifth less than they were in 2008,” said Melissa Ryan and Ross Nieuwoudt, the co-chairs of the British Medical Association’s (BMA) resident doctors’ committee.
The mandate allowed industrial action to take place until January, but the BMA said there was “still time to avert” it.