Doctors in England could be offered a bigger pay rise after the health secretary admitted there needed to be “movement on both sides” in the long-running dispute, but refused to restart talks while strikes were planned.
Steve Barclay said that although he considered demands of a 35% salary increase to be unreasonable, a larger rise would be offered if negotiations were to resume.
“I don’t think a 35% pay demand, which they refuse to move away from, is reasonable given the headwinds we face from inflation,” he told the Times, adding: “I think there needs to be movement on both sides.”
Junior doctors in England want a 35% pay rise to make up for what they estimate to be a 26% cut in their real-terms’ income since 2008-09, plus inflation.
They have staged two stoppages so far in pursuit of their goal of “full pay restoration”, forcing hospitals to postpone several hundred thousand outpatient appointments and operations.
But latest polling shows about two-thirds of the public support striking nurses, ambulance workers and junior doctors, despite growing numbers of appointments and operations having to be cancelled.
The figures have roughly held steady since the beginning of the year, though they dipped slightly in March after doctors, ambulance workers and nurses all held strikes.
Healthcare workers are striking in an effort to reverse the deep cuts to their salaries that have resulted from a decade of pay rises that have not kept up with inflation.
Doctors, nurses and some other healthcare professionals have voted against the government’s offer of 5% plus a non-consolidated payment.
Junior doctors, who can have up to eight years of experience as a hospital doctor or three years in general practice, voted this month to strike from 7am on 13 July until 7am on 18 July, the longest such strike in NHS history.
On Tuesday it was announced that senior doctors had voted to join them for the first time in this pay dispute, with the first two-day strike for consultants in more than 50 years scheduled from 20 July.
Meanwhile, the NHS England chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme: “The hard truth is it is patients that are paying the price for the fact all sides have not managed to reach a resolution.
“There has been a significant amount of disruption and that is only going to get more significant as we hit the next round of strikes.”
