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The government has announced a pay rise for all public sector workers after accepting recommendations of the independent pay review bodies for 2023-24. This includes salaried GPs and trainees but not GP partners.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the government’s new pay offer would cost billions of pounds which had not been budgeted for and would largely have to be found from elsewhere in the government budget.
Under the review bodies’ recommendations accepted by ministers, senior NHS staff will receive a 6% pay increase in 2023-24, police 7%, teachers 6.5%, junior doctors 6% plus a one-off payment, and armed forces personnel 5% plus a one-off payment.
Pay rise will wield an axe to an already constrained budget
The NHS Confederation said that while they welcome the clarity on what the pay rises for doctors will be this year and that the government has honoured the recommendations from the independent pay review body, they cannot raid their own budgets to fund this.
It said that the unless the increase is funded in full, this announcement does nothing more than wield an axe to the NHS’s already constrained budget and potentially allow industrial action to disrupt patient care for the foreseeable future.
Over a million NHS staff, including nurses and ambulance crews, accepted a 5% wage increase by the government for 2023-24, along with a one-off payment for last year.
It is thought that the immigration health surcharge, a fee for foreigners to access the NHS, will be put up to foot the bill for the extra 6% pay for junior doctors.
British Medical Association (BMA) chair Professor Phil Banfield has already told BBC Radio 4 that the pay rise for doctors will not end the 5-day dispute that started today, nor will it retain doctors and stop them from going abroad.