PRESS RELEASE : Fresh offer paves way to end junior doctor strikes [July 2024]

The press release issued by the Department of Health and Social Care on 29 July 2024.

The BMA will recommend members accept the offer following the negotiations, which could bring an end to 15 months of devastating strike action.

• End to junior doctor strikes in sight as union recommends members accept government offer
• The first meaningful pay rise for years marks reset in relationship and shared mission to fix broken NHS
• From September junior doctors will be referred to as ‘resident doctors’ to reflect expertise

The government and the British Medical Association (BMA) have reached an agreement to put a new pay offer for junior doctors to members.

The BMA will recommend members accept the offer which could bring an end to 15 months of devastating strike action.

If accepted, this offer will deliver an additional pay rise of between 3.71% and 5.05%, averaging 4.05%, on top of their existing pay award for 2023 to 2024. This will be backdated to April 2023.

The Health Secretary has made it a top priority since taking up his role to reach an agreement to bring an end to strike action – speaking to the BMA junior doctors’ committee on his first day in government and meeting with them regularly over the last 3 weeks.

The government will also accept the recommendations of the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB) for 2024 to 2025 and uplift each part of the pay scale by 6%, plus £1,000 on a consolidated basis, averaging an increase of over 8%, with an effective date of 1 April 2024.

Both rises combined mean a doctor starting foundation training in the NHS will see their basic pay increase to £36,600, compared to around £32,400 before this offer was made. A full-time doctor entering specialty training will see their basic pay rise to over £49,900 from around £43,900 before this offer was made.

The impact of strikes has had a significant impact on the NHS, where patients have seen nearly 1.5 million appointments cancelled or rearranged, and striking doctors will have lost many days of pay. Under the previous administration, the cost to the taxpayer totals almost £1.7 billion since April last year.

The government has received a fiscal inheritance from the previous government that necessitates difficult decisions be made. The government has set out plans for managing unfunded pressures, including pay, and further fiscal plans will be set out in the usual way at the Budget.

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said:

I am delighted that we have agreed an offer that finally paves the way to ending industrial action which has caused untold misery to patients and staff.

Everyone agrees we can’t have more disruption, more cancelled appointments, which is why my priority from day one has been to end this dispute.

This has been a tough negotiation, but we have worked rapidly to reach a fair offer. I have been honest about the terrible economic inheritance left for this government, while the junior doctors’ committee has been clear that nothing less than the offer on the table will bring these strikes to an end.

This is a fair offer. Fair to junior doctors, fair to patients and fair to the NHS. It also represents an opportunity to truly reset relationships so we can begin working together to bring waiting lists down and fix the broken NHS.

The government will ask the DDRB to consider the overall reward package and career progression for resident doctors as part of its recommendations for 2025 to 2026. This will help ensure that medicine remains an attractive and rewarding career choice to deliver consultants and GPs of the future.

Recognising how disruptive the system of rotations can be for junior doctors, their partners and families, the department will lead a review of the current system, with the intention of reforming the number and frequency of rotations. It will also review and, where needed, redesign curriculums. NHS England will review training numbers, working to address training bottlenecks and make sure the NHS has enough doctors, consultants and GPs for the future.

As part of the ambition to reset the relationship between the government and NHS doctors, the government will refer to them by their chosen title, ‘resident doctors’, which better reflects their expertise.

This change will happen in September.

Background information

The combined impact on the 2024 to 2025 pay scales of the adjustments to the 2023 to 2024 scale are outlined in table 1 below.

Table 1: combined impact of adjustments on the 2024 to 2025 pay scales for 2016 junior doctor contracts