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Offer improves resident doctor pay, working conditions and career progression
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Ballot opened on Thursday 18 June and will close on 26 June
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Simple majority will end strikes long-term
Resident doctors will see greater opportunities for career progression, better pay and improved working conditions if they vote for the government’s transformative offer in a ballot.
The British Medical Association (BMA) is now putting the offer to members for their say. Strikes set to take place this week were called off as a result of this vote.
The government has carefully listened to feedback provided by the BMA Resident Doctors Committee on behalf of their membership and worked with them to strengthen and clarify the offer originally made in March.
The offer would see resident doctors benefit from pay structure reform, leading to more frequent pay rises as doctors gain key competencies and demonstrate increasing capability. The revised offer brings forward pay scale reform so that resident doctors experience the benefit of the pay rises faster compared with the offer set out in March.
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care James Murray said
This transformative offer improves the pay, working conditions and job prospects of hardworking resident doctors.
It is a very good offer, and it’s one that will not get any better.
We now all have a chance to draw a line under the disruption of strikes and focus on getting on with the job of caring for patients and fixing our health service.
Resident doctors have had a 28.9% pay rise over the last three years – the highest anywhere in the public sector.
Under the offer, resident doctors would see an average pay rise of 4.9% this year, making resident doctors on average 35.2% better off than four years ago. There would be even higher pay rises on average for the lowest paid first year and second year doctors – at 6.2% and 7.1% respectively.
The offer would also put money back in resident doctors’ pockets through the reimbursement of mandatory Royal College portfolio fees and mandatory examinations costs, often worth thousands of pounds. It would also raise the Flexible Pay Premia for clinical academic resident doctors to £10,000 in recognition of their unique contribution.
To tackle training bottlenecks which can hinder career progression, the offer would see up to an additional 4,500 training posts implemented over the next three years, including 1,000 next year. 250 of these roles will start in February 2027. This builds on the impact of the Medical Training Prioritisation Act – the new law this government has already brought in – which is expected to halve competition ratios for this year’s applicants.
The offer also provides greater stability for Locally Employed Doctors who are employed on a different contract to most resident doctors, allowing them to progress more easily into higher training and improve their terms and conditions.
Professor Francesca Swords, National Medical Director for the NHS said
We want the NHS to be the best place to work for resident doctors, and we know we haven’t always got things right.
But we are turning things around; ending the frustration of payroll errors, providing faster turnaround on repaying expenses, and offering more training places – and we will not stop this important work.
This offer agreed together with the BMA will increase pay further for resident doctors, reimburse them for expensive exam fees, ensure they have better training and job opportunities, and improve working conditions further.
I hope resident doctors are already starting to feel the difference, and I hope that they recognise the further significant improvements this deal could make for them.
In the most recent round of strikes, NHS staff delivered 94.1% of planned care, but every day of strike action affects patients and colleagues, impacts the NHS budget and delays improvements to working conditions.
If this offer is rejected in pursuit of further damaging industrial action, it will be operationally and financially impossible for the government to maintain such a generous offer again.
Resident doctors have until Friday 26 June to vote on the offer, with a simple majority needed to proceed with the offer and end the strikes for the long-term.
Despite major challenges, under this government, NHS staff are treating more patients than ever before. The overall waiting list is now 403,000 lower than in June 2024 and 171,000 lower than a year ago.
Thanks to our record investment, modernisation and the remarkable efforts of NHS staff across the country, we are making the NHS fit for the future.
Background
The full offer is available to view here
An explainer is available here
