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The BMA junior doctors committee has voted to go to a ballot for industrial action in early January due to the government’s continual failure to value them and “reverse years of pay erosion”.
The committee will request approval from BMA council, the union’s principal executive committee, to ballot junior doctors in England from around the 9 January. What form that industrial action will take will be decided at a later date.
Ongoing pay erosion will force junior doctors to leave the profession
The BMA said it was deeply concerned that ongoing pay erosion will continue to drive doctors out of the profession at a time when the NHS can least stand to lose them, leading to a vicious cycle of crippling staffing shortages and worse patient care.
It added that junior doctors have experienced real term pay cuts of more than a quarter of their salaries since 2008/9. The government this year gave junior doctors just a 2% pay uplift and excluded them from the higher 4.5% pay uplift for other NHS workers.
The union says this is despite going above and beyond their contracts during Covid and the pay review body’s warning to government that a failure to include staff on multi-year pay deals in the higher uplift would ‘have a significant effect on motivation, affecting retention, productivity, and ultimately patient care.
“The perpetual crisis in the NHS is not acceptable”
The new co-chairs of the BMA junior doctor committee, Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said: “A junior doctor is not worth more than a quarter less today than they were in 2008, and yet this is the amount of pay erosion that we are facing. Many of us are struggling to pay our rent, mortgages, childcare costs and energy bills and questioning whether the continued struggle is worth it.
“For years, junior doctors have soldiered on, in the face of continued pay erosion and through a global pandemic. But it’s become clear that the government is deep into their overdraft at the bank of good will and now they must pay us back. Pressures are unbearable; waiting lists have hit new records, ambulances are stacking up outside hospitals and GP services are deluged with demand.
“Strike action is always a last resort. No doctor wants to take industrial action, and this is, of course, still wholly avoidable if the government commits to full pay restoration.Our message to the profession and to our patients is clear. The perpetual crisis in the NHS is not acceptable, but the danger is that it comes to be treated as the norm. Without an urgent intervention, it will only get worse. We are now in a trade dispute with Government over pay and will proceed with the next steps in preparing to ballot junior doctor members in England for industrial action.”