UK gov’t offers junior doctors 22.3% pay rise to end strikes

Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves speaks during a press conference in London, Monday July 29, 2024, following her statement to the House of Commons on the findings of the Treasury audit into the state of the public finances. (Lucy North/PA via AP)

London, United Kingdom — Britain’s recently elected government and the union representing junior doctors said on Monday they have struck an agreement offering a substantial pay rise to end a wave of unprecedented strikes.

The British Medical Association (BMA) said it agreed to put the offer to members and recommended them to vote in favor.

If accepted, it would put an end to a long-running dispute over wages, triggering pickets including the longest walkout — totaling six days — in the seven-decade history of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS).

READ: Britain’s junior doctors prepare to strike over pay, burnout

Junior doctors — those below specialist, consultant level — in England had been asking for a 35-percent “pay restoration”.

While the new offer falls short of that, the BMA said the average junior doctor’s pay uplift across the two years of the dispute would be 22.3 percent.

“This offer does not go all the way to restoring the pay lost by junior doctors over the last decade and a half,” the union said.

But although it lamented “it should never have taken so long to get here”, the union called the package “a good step forward for our profession, acknowledging there is still more work to be done in the future”.

Since coming to power in July, the center-left Labour government has been keen to draw a line under the long-running industrial disputes sparked by soaring inflation which dogged the previous Conservative administration.

Besides doctors, it has relaunched negotiations with railway workers.

Finance minister Rachel Reeves hailed the agreement as “the start of a new relationship” between the government and healthcare staff.

Labour has made turning the crisis-hit NHS around a priority, pledging to tackle huge backlogs in waiting times for appointments and surgery and an exodus of professionals leaving the service.