Junior doctors bring dispute to end by voting to accept Streeting’s pay offer

Junior doctors in England have voted to accept the government’s pay offer, bringing to an end one of the longest and bitterest disputes in recent NHS history.

Just under two-thirds (66%) of the 45,830 junior doctors who voted backed the deal, which will see them receiving an average salary increase of 22.3% over two years.

It ends 18 months of strikes during which junior doctors stopped work on 44 days – sometimes for five days at a time – causing huge disruption to the NHS.

The 22.3% increase was less than the 35% rise the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee (JDC) had been seeking for the last two years as “full pay restoration” for the fall in their earnings they have experienced since 2008. But it proved enough to persuade a sizeable majority of that branch of the medical profession to call off their campaign of stoppages.

Danny Mortimer, the chief executive of NHS Employers, welcomed the news. “Health leaders will breathe a massive sigh of relief to know that the ongoing pay dispute between resident doctors and government has come to a successful resolution. The last thing our members wanted was the threat of more strikes over what is expected to be a very difficult winter,” he said.

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Source: Guardian, 16 September 2024