The junior doctor pay deal won’t end the government’s NHS headache

The government has offered junior doctors a pay rise worth up to 20 per cent over two years in a bid to end the strikes that have seriously hampered the NHS. Rachel Reeves is expected to confirm later today that the doctors have struck a deal with their ministers that will include a backdated rise of 4.05 per cent – on top of the existing 8-10 per cent raise – for 2023/24. Then pay will rise again by 6 per cent in 2024/25, as well as doctors receiving an additional £1,000. The cost of the deal is £1 billion.

The overall 20 per cent hike is much closer to the 35 per cent that the British Medical Association had demanded – and that both this government and the previous had argued was unaffordable. The deal allows both sides to maintain their positions: the government can still say that it is not making unaffordable deals, while the BMA can argue that it has secured much better than expected deal for its members and that the protracted strikes were worthwhile. It is recommending that its members accept the deal. 

Reeves was preparing the ground last week for a higher offer when she talked about the cost to the service of ongoing industrial action: it is estimated that the bill for the walkouts for the NHS is around £3 billion. Both she and Health Secretary Wes Streeting have been keen to resolve the standoff with the doctors as soon as possible so that the government has a chance of meeting its manifesto pledges of driving down the waiting lists in the health service. Streeting has also made clear that he wants to improve the working conditions of junior doctors, arguing that the NHS often treats them very poorly. Even with a pay deal, there remains a serious retention crisis in the health service, with a highly mobile group of doctors regularly tempted to work overseas for employers that treat them with a little more dignity. 

But this is not the end of the industrial relations headache for this new government. GPs – also represented by the BMA – are now threatening to bring the NHS to a ‘standstill’ with a strike over their new contract. Though the union argues that patients aren’t the target, the limited work proposals that they are making will still make it much harder for people to get a GP appointment. And the NHS still won’t be close to humming along properly for a good long while.