The TRUTH about resident doctors' pay and their eye-watering demands for up to £20,000 extra a year - ahead of 5-day NHS strike

Daily Mail​

3 days ago

Striking NHS doctors are wielding misleading statistics to justify their eye-watering pay demands, analysis suggests.
In pursuit of salary hikes worth up to £20,000, resident doctors will bring hospitals to a standstill from Friday as they walkout for five consecutive days.
Militant union bosses orchestrating the carnage claim the medics – previously known as junior doctors – need a rise worth in excess of 29 per cent to make up for 17 years of 'pay erosion'.
This is on top of the average 28.9 per cent awarded to resident doctors over the last three years, including an inflation-busting hike this year of 5.4 per cent – the most generous in the public sector.
British Medical Association (BMA) bosses argue this is not enough.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting blasted the BMA's strike action, calling it 'shockingly irresponsible' and insisting he will not budge on pay.
The Government claims the average full-time basic pay of a resident doctor now sits at £54,300. This is up from around £42,000 in 2022/23.
If the BMA's demands are met, their average basic salary would exceed £70,000 per year. Compared with 2024/25 pay packets, this would give the most senior resident doctors an extra £20,000.
Ministers are still seeking a deal to avert more strike chaos, which could see doctors have some of their student loan debt wiped off to appease them.
Resident doctors have taken industrial action 11 times since initial negotiations began in 2022.
Campaign materials pushed out by the BMA say pay erosion equates to 21 per cent below inflation since 2008/09.
On its website, the union writes: 'Put another way, resident doctors are still working a fifth of their time for free.'
However, this sum is calculated against the Retail Price Index (RPI) inflation measure.
Tracking resident doctors' salary against the Consumer Price Index (CPI) instead, the Nuffield Trust found they are just 4.7 per cent below since 2008.
Addressing this erosion would amount to an average lift of around five per cent. This would amount to an average pay boost of below £3,000.
When measured against CPI levels since 2015/16, the Nuffield Trust revealed resident doctors have actually had a 7.9 per cent pay increase.
Government sources have criticised the BMA's use of RPI in its calculations because it overstates inflation.
It was, for this reason, the statistics watchdog downgraded RPI as an official national measure in 2013. Since then, CPI and CPIH (CPI including housing costs) have been the accepted standards for calculating inflation.
MailOnline understands the Government will phase out its use by the end of the decade.
Grilled about the pay of other NHS staff, Mr Streeting told MPs that cash is 'finite'.
He said: 'These sorts of choices and trade-offs about resources are precisely why I asked BMA resident doctors to understand why, having received a 28.9 per cent pay rise from this government in the last year, they ought to remember the responsibility that I have, and they also have to some of their lower paid colleagues.
'Resources are finite, and it is important that I act in the interests of all NHS staff and have particular concern for those who work extremely hard but are not properly rewarded.'
However, the BMA has defended its use of RPI, arguing it is a more accurate metric for everyday people.
A BMA spokesperson said: 'RPI is a measure which we, in line with the wider trade union movement, believe best reflects the real life experience of working people in the UK, and which the Government continues to use when it suits.
'For one thing, RPI sets student loan repayments. In a country where new doctors often have student debts of over £100,000 this is a hefty chunk of their living costs.
'Car taxes and train fare caps are also set by RPI, making up a huge part of the costs of many doctors finding themselves with long commuting distances as they get moved around the country on rotations.
'These moves also mean the need to find housing, a cost which itself feeds back into the calculations of RPI and make it even more relevant to the life of a working doctor.'
MailOnline analysis shows that basic full-time equivalent (FTE) pay packets for all but one group of resident doctors has risen over the past 15 years against CPIH.
Just foundation year 2 (FY2) doctors have seen a pay erosion when looking at the figures this way.
FY1, core training and speciality registrar doctors' salaries were 1.1, 6.5 and 1.7 per cent higher, respectively, in March 2025 than August 2010, when compared with CPIH inflation.
Our calculations only include basic pay, so the approximate one-quarter of doctors' salaries which is additional pay – such as overtime and uplifts for unsocial hours – is not included.
In September, BMA members voted to accept a Government pay deal worth 22.3 per cent on average over two years to end a swathe of strike action plaguing the previous Tory government.
The 2025/26 pay deal saw resident doctors given a 4 per cent uplift plus £750 'on a consolidated basis'.
This worked out as an average pay rise of 5.4 per cent, totalling 28.9 per cent over the three years.
However, this did not prove enough to ward off further strike action, with BMA members overwhelmingly voting in favour of fresh action over the offer. Nearly 90 per cent of 30,000 doctors (55 per cent turnout) voted to walk out.
A spokesperson for the Department for Health and Social Care told MailOnline: 'Resident doctors have seen the biggest pay rises in the public sector two years in a row thanks to this government, and a pay increase of 28.9 per cent across three years.
'Public support for resident doctors strikes has collapsed and the majority of BMA resident doctors did not even vote for these strikes.'
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 per cent fall in pay since 2008 or a 7.9 per cent increase since 2015.
'Comparing changes to pay at the same point in time, using different measures of inflation, also results in very different answers. For instance, resident doctor pay has fallen by 4.7 per cent since 2008 against CPI, but has decreased by 17.9 per cent over the same period when using RPI.
'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.'
It comes after a report yesterday warned the looming strikes could cause 250,000 appointments to be cancelled or postponed this month.
The walkouts may also cost the NHS £87million in staffing cover, the Policy Exchange think-tank said.
Charities have expressed their 'deep concern' at the action and warned it will cause 'significant distress, pain and worsening health for patients'.
Consultants will be able to cash-in by charging hospitals inflated rates of up to £2,504 a shift to cover for absent junior colleagues, depleting them of funds that could have been used to buy new scanners, repair buildings or deliver more procedures.
Resident doctors have qualified from medical school but remain in clinical training for up to eight years. They work under the supervision of senior doctors during their on-the-job experience.
Previous strikes by junior doctors led to the deaths of at least five patients, an audit revealed last week.
NHS leaders have warned even 'more lives could be put at risk' during next week's five-day full walkout.