Latest news with #junordoctors
The Guardian
09-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
The BMA wants a 29% pay rise for resident doctors – but how did it calculate these figures?
The British Medical Association (BMA) is demanding a 29% pay rise for resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, in England, to prevent industrial action. The union claims the increase is needed to reverse cuts to the real-terms value of their pay since 2008. But how credible are its calculations? The BMA has calculated that real-terms pay for resident doctors has declined by almost 21% over the past 17 years. The union says this equates to resident doctors working for free a fifth of the time. The BMA calculated this on the basis of the retail prices index (RPI) measure of inflation, rather than the consumer prices index (CPI), an internationally recognised calculation of inflation which is used by the UK government. However, the RPI lost its status as a national statistic in 2013, as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the way it calculated prices was likely to overstate the rate of inflation. The Nuffield Trust health thinktank has questioned the validity of the BMA's calculations. It noted that using CPI as a measure, resident doctors' pay has fallen but only by 4.7% since 2008. The thinktank also noted that the 2008 comparison date used by the BMA is arbitrary. For example, if the union was to use 2015 as the starting point, resident doctors' pay – based on CPI – has increased over the past 10 years. Nuffield Trust researcher, Lucina Rolewicz, said: 'You can paint a very different picture of real-terms changes to resident doctors' pay packets over time, depending on the methods you use. It's important to look at a range of baseline years to get a more complete understanding of what has happened to pay. For example, if you look at what's changed since 2008, pay erosion appears much worse than if you looked at the changes since 2015 in isolation. Against the CPI measure of inflation, this can make the difference of showing a 4.7% fall in pay since 2008 or a 7.9% increase since 2015.' She added: 'Given the importance of the debate for doctors, their colleagues, patients and taxpayers, it is crucial that we look at all the ways that pay can be seen to have changed.' The average starting salary for a full-time resident doctor is about £38,800, a rise of almost £9,500 since 2022-23 when it was £29,380. The health secretary, Wes Streeting, has said that resident doctors' pay has risen by 28.9% over the last three years. They have received the highest pay awards of all public sector workers, with BMA members in September voting to accept a government pay deal worth 22.3% on average over two years, bringing to an end to months of strike action under the last Conservative government. They were awarded a further 5.4% increase for 2025-26 in this year's pay settlement. Resident doctors are threatening to stage six months of strikes, from this month up to January 2026. Huge numbers of outpatient appointments and procedures were cancelled when they went on strike for a total of 44 days between March 2023 and July 2024. Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, warned that strikes by resident doctors would threaten the delivery of the government's key NHS pledge to voters – to restore the target that 92% of people waiting for planned hospital care get it within 18 weeks by 2029. Health service chiefs also fear that a fresh wave of strikes by resident doctors could encourage other NHS staff, including nurses, to take industrial action over pay. Hospital consultants are also threatening to strike in the autumn over the 4% pay rise they were awarded for this year, which the BMA called 'an insult to senior doctors'. The Royal College of Nursing and Unison – whose members were given 3.6% pay increase this year– are undertaking indicative ballots of their members to assess their willingness to strike.
Khaleej Times
09-07-2025
- Health
- Khaleej Times
Junior doctors in England announce five-day strike over pay demand
Junior doctors in England will go on strike from July 25-30, their trade union said on Wednesday, after the British government said it could not meet their demands for an improved pay deal this year. "Without a credible offer to keep us on the path to restore our pay, we have no choice but to call strikes," the co-chairs of the British Medical Association's (BMA) resident doctors committee said in a statement. Junior doctors, also known as resident doctors, are taking industrial action after being offered an average 5.4% pay rise by the government, far below the 29% they say is necessary to address years of salary erosion in real terms. The doctors had accepted a 22% pay rise last year covering 2023-2025, which ended months of previous strikes. The new strikes threaten to once again disrupt thousands of appointments and procedure at Britain's hospitals just as the government said it had started to improve services at the state-funded National Health Service (NHS). The BMA said it had met Health Secretary Wes Streeting on Wednesday but that the government wanted to focus on improving the non-pay elements of doctors' work. Streeting said in a letter to the trade union, published on the government website on Wednesday, that the government could not "go further" on pay this year and that he was disappointed by the threat of more strike action.
RNZ News
09-07-2025
- Health
- RNZ News
Physical and verbal abuse at hospitals becoming routine
In April there were three incidents in one night involving health workers from Palmerston North hospital. Photo: A leading advocate for junior doctors says she is dreading the day when a hospital worker is killed. After a staff member was held up at gunpoint outside Palmerston North Hospital in April , RNZ has heard from many health workers who do not feel safe on the job. Health New Zealand says it is continuously improving security, and taking on feedback about this, but unions representing hospital workers say problems persist. New Zealand Resident Doctors' Association national secretary Dr Deborah Powell said junior doctors, who were often on the frontlines at emergency departments, were reporting physical and verbal abuse at work becoming routine. "The day we have a death is the day the unions dread. We'd all prefer we don't have to face that day and we've kept our people safer than that." Nurses Organisation delegates have called for beefed up powers for hospital security officers, but Powell said that could be problematic. She raised the possibility of a police presence in emergency departments, or fast responses to calls from there. The security boost in some emergency departments was helping, but there were bigger problems behind people's growing frustrations, such as the hospitals themselves. "If you've got a cramped, crowded ED, if you don't have rooms to put whānau in who are having a rough time with whatever's happening to their family member, or if you've got people who have mental distress and we don't have a quiet place where we can talk with them, it escalates the level of agitation and likelihood of assaults." Respect towards health workers going about their business also needed to return, she said. "It's not their fault we're in the constrained environment we're in." In April a health worker in Palmerston North was held up at gunpoint after she left the hospital on a late shift. Police are still investigating. On the same night another staff member there was knocked unconscious. RNZ has since learned of a third incident that night, where police were called when a person threatened staff in the emergency department. There have also been assaults of hospital workers reported in Auckland and Christchurch this year . NZ Nurses Organisation Palmerston North delegate David Goldstone wanted to see security guards get more powers to intervene when trouble occurs. They are currently left to calm a situation without force. "If it did happen it would make the staff feel safer. They'd have security guards with powers that could actually do something. "Today you've got security guards standing around an abusive, aggressive person waiting for police, because they can't do anything." Fellow Nurses Organisation delegate Jane Swift said hospital staff were left to deal with situations as best they could until enforcement arrived. "We need police to respond quickly. We would like to see the security guards have more powers to take action accordingly, and we would like to see the police respond so that staff are not left in those vulnerable positions." Goldstone said police had sometimes taken up to two hours to arrive when called. "If you've got somebody going off for two hours that's a long time in a ward, making the other patients vulnerable." Police Superintendent Kelly Ryan, the director for emergency communications and dispatch, said there were standard procedures for emergency call management anywhere. "Outside of emergency situations, police has a threshold for what work requires a police response and what doesn't. "This ensures police is only involved where it's appropriate, due to an offence, violence or immediate risk to life or safety, and other agencies are clear on their roles and responsibilities. It also means police has more time to do the work that only police can, and which the community expects them to do." Health NZ group director of operations for the MidCentral District Sarah Fenwick said increased security remained in place at Palmerston North Hospital, as did arrangements allowing afternoon and night staff to get to their cars safely. "We are unable to give more powers to our security guards, who are required to operate within the confines of the law. However, we are doing our best to make sure our staff and patients feel safe and that our security team are supported in this." Improving security was a continuous process. "We are constantly reviewing and checking feedback on the solutions we have put and in place and are committed to providing a safe environment for our staff and our community." A government funding boost had allowed it to provide more than 40 full-time-equivalent security guards across its biggest hospitals and "surge capacity" at the likes of Palmerston North Hospital when there was high need, Health NZ said. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Telegraph
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Tebbit's wins need to be won all over again
Lord Tebbit, the former Cabinet minister who has died at the age of 94, considered the Employment Act of 1982 to be his greatest political achievement. The legislation continued the process of dismantling the power of the trade unions which had brought the country to its knees throughout the 1970s. It ended many of the legal immunities enjoyed by the unions and exposed them to civil court proceedings for damages brought by the businesses they targeted. Secondary picketing and the closed shop had already been severely curtailed, but the 1982 Act sought to provide specific remedies for real abuses and to redress the imbalance of bargaining power between unions and employers. It reduced the legal protection of union funds during strikes, enabling the sequestration of the National Union of Mineworkers' assets during its stoppage of 1984-85, and of the print unions' during the Wapping dispute of 1986-87. The intervening 40 years or so have seen a marked decrease in days lost to strike action. No longer is the country routinely held to ransom by a handful of politically-motivated union bosses. But while this trend has continued in the private sector, in the public one it is a different matter. Here unions are once again flexing their muscles, especially the increasingly militant British Medical Association (BMA). Junior doctors, whose industrial action in 2022 caused the cancellation of 1.5 million hospital appointments, have again voted to strike over pay demanding another 29 per cent increase. Now known as resident doctors, they have seen their pay jump by almost 30 per cent in three years yet are prepared to inflict further damage on an already broken NHS. One of the Tebbit-era reforms was for unions to vote on strike action; but while 90 per cent of those who took part in the BMA ballot favoured more walkouts, they represented less than half of those entitled to vote. Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, made much of the Tory failure to settle the last dispute when he was in opposition. Now he is also refusing to negotiate with the BMA, insisting that there is no money available. Yet Labour has also promised to use a new workers' rights Bill to repeal Tory legislation requiring a minimum service to be guaranteed by striking unions. That is a decision ministers are about to regret. The battle that Norman Tebbit fought 40 years ago will need to be won all over again.
Telegraph
08-07-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Doctors' strike threatens to derail Labour's 10-year health plan
Resident doctors have voted to strike again in a blow to Wes Streeting's 10-year health plan. The medics, formerly called 'junior doctors', have a new mandate for industrial action until January 2026 as they demand a 29 per cent pay rise. NHS leaders warned it risked 'jeopardising' the crucial 10-year plan, unveiled last week by Sir Keir Starmer, which set out ambitions to transform the NHS into a digital and community-based service with easy access to GPs and dentists. Mr Streeting, the Health Secretary, will meet the resident doctors' leaders on Tuesday afternoon but officials said there were no plans to negotiate on this year's pay rise of 5.4 per cent. Consultants and nurses have also threatened to strike over pay and conditions in recent months. It comes less than a year after the residents were awarded a 22 per cent pay rise. They are now demanding a further pay rise of 29 per cent to return them to the 'real terms' pay levels of 2008.
