5 hours ago
6
The British Medical Association has been accused of the “height of hypocrisy” for offering its own staff below-inflation pay rises while demanding a 26% increase for resident doctors.
Tens of thousands of medics walked out of the NHS in England on Tuesday, the 15th time they have staged industrial action since March 2023 in their campaign for “full pay restoration”.
At the same time, hundreds of BMA staff staged strike action themselves after the doctors’ union offered them a below-inflation pay rise of 2.75%.
The BMA rejected an offer from Wes Streeting, the health secretary, that would have given resident doctors a pay rise averaging 4.9% this year – almost twice the increase it is offering its own workers.
The doctors’ union has said it is unable to offer its own staff any more money due to pressures on its budgets. At the same time, the union is seeking a 26% taxpayer-funded pay rise for resident doctors to be spread over several years.
Donna Thomas, a regional organiser for GMB, which represents staff at the BMA, said: “The BMA is asking the government for pay restoration for their doctor members but have failed to restore the pay of their own staff, who have seen their wages eroded nearly 17%.”
The Guardian understands that the BMA staff affected include admin workers, policy experts, communication officers, IT specialists and negotiators who have been supporting the resident doctors committee in its long-running dispute with the government. BMA staff began their 48-hour walkout on Monday.
Streeting said the offer to doctors rejected by the BMA would have delivered an average pay rise this year of 4.9%, a pay boost of at least 6.2% for the lowest-paid doctors, and an overall pay increase of 35.2% on average compared with four years ago.
Speaking after medics walked out on Tuesday, Streeting said: “Resident doctors are, by a country mile, the standout winners of the entire public sector workforce when it comes to the pay rises they have received from this government, and this was a good deal, they have rejected it. The day they rejected it, they rushed straight to six days of strike action, which will cost the NHS £300m.”
He said the government had “bent over backwards” for resident doctors but what was offered was “never enough”. “And here’s the real kicker, having rejected this deal because the pay offer apparently wasn’t good enough at 4.9%, the BMA are offering their own staff 2.75% on affordability grounds.
“Why does the BMA think they can get away with telling their own staff they only get 2.75% because that’s all they can afford, whilst rejecting a 4.9% offer because that’s all the government can afford?”
Streeting added: “So it seems to me, the BMA position boils down to this: they’re not prepared to pay their own staff more than 2.75% because they say they can’t afford it, but they’re very happy to ask the taxpayer to cough up even more whether the taxpayer can afford it or not. And I think that is the height of hypocrisy from the BMA.”
Dr Jack Fletcher, the chair of the resident doctors committee, said on Tuesday he was “genuinely very sorry” medics were striking but said they “feel like we had no choice.
“We gave the government several opportunities to avoid it, and they chose not to,” he said. “I don’t think that it’s in the interests of the government to be using doctors’ jobs as political pawns when we have an epidemic of corridor care, when we have people struggling to get GP appointments, we have waiting lists, which still remain stubbornly high.”
On Tuesday, NHS colleagues of resident doctors were drafted in to provide cover, but the strike meant some treatments and appointments had to be cancelled.
Polling by YouGov on Tuesday showed that 55% of the public opposed the resident doctor strikes. The poll of 4,385 British adults suggested 37% supported the walkouts.
Speaking on a picket line at Bristol Royal Infirmary, one medic said he believed the public were generally supportive of the resident doctors’ strikes, though some were “understandably frustrated with the longevity” of them.
Dr Sam Taylor-Smith said he would apologise to patients whose appointments were cancelled but added he was doing so “365 days a year” due to inadequate levels of staffing.
“I do see a bit more positive movement with this government but we’re still not quite there yet,” he said. “Unfortunately there’s still been, at times, grandstanding and posturing rather than meaningful engagement.”
The walkout in England is due to last until 7am on Monday. Health leaders have urged patients not to be put off seeking the care they need.
