NHS consultant strikes: BMA announces two more walkouts

NHS consultants successful England person announced 2 much days of strikes implicit a long-running wage dispute.

They were already owed to onslaught connected Thursday and Friday - and present they volition besides locomotion retired connected 24 and 25 August, the British Medical Association (BMA) said.

The caller dates were successful effect to a "derisory" 6% wage rise, said the BMA, a commercialized national for doctors.

The authorities said the rise, announced past week, was just and called the caller onslaught dates disappointing.

During this week's onslaught and connected the caller August dates, consultants volition supply alleged "Christmas Day cover", which includes exigency attraction and a tiny magnitude of regular work.

The BMA said the wage grant amounted to "another real-terms wage cut".

For consultants, the below-inflation wage emergence was "nothing abbreviated of insulting", the BMA said, and would really boost wage by little than 6% erstwhile "all elements of wage were considered".

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said the authorities valued NHS staff, "which is wherefore we're giving consultants a just and tenable wage rise".

"We've made it wide this wage grant is not up for dialog and it's disappointing the BMA are continuing with disruptive concern action," they added.

The 6% wage emergence is successful enactment with wage reappraisal assemblage recommendations, but acold beneath what doctors are asking for.

Consultant wage has fallen 27% since 2008 erstwhile the Retail Price Index (RPI) - 1 measurement of ostentation - is taken into relationship but the BMA says the chopped is 35% erstwhile changes to taxation and pension contributions are factored in. The authorities said it had acted connected the BMA's petition for pension reform, expanding the tax-free threshold connected pensions contributions.

Unlike inferior doctors, consultants are not asking for afloat wage restoration successful 1 go. Instead, they privation the authorities to commencement astatine slightest giving wage rises that lucifer inflation.

During 2022, mean NHS net exceeded £126,000 for consultants - this includes other wage for further hours and performance.

Dr Vishal Sharma, seat of the BMA consultants committee, said the strikes were a past edifice and that the national had "been near with nary choice".

He said the authorities was "devaluing consultants' expertise" and showing a "lack of respect for the interaction this is having connected the NHS".

He said the wage assemblage proposal of a 6% wage emergence showed "the request to betterment the wage reappraisal system" and that the summation was a "savage real-terms wage cut".

Dr Sharma warned of further strikes aft August, saying consultants were "in this for the agelong haul". More than 85% of BMA members backed walkouts successful a erstwhile ballot.

"The aboriginal of the NHS depends connected determination being consultants wrong it, but attacks connected their wage volition thrust them distant - from the wellness work and from the state - with devastating consequences," helium said.