A top Tory has suggested doctors shouldn’t complain about pay as he could be earning £400,000 but chooses not to.
Simon Clarke, who earns more than £84,000 a year as an MP, boasted that his salary would be much higher in the private sector but that he works as an MP because he believes in it.
The former Cabinet minister argued the Government does not “not get the credit” it deserves on NHS pay in a debate on Facebook.
One user user told Mr Clarke: “The average GP has trained and qualified for their role and are justified for their salary.”
Mr Clarke, who was Levelling Up Secretary under Liz Truss, responded: “Fine… but the average MP is also well qualified. I suspect my earnings in the private sector today would be £300-400,000. I do this job because I believe in it.”
Family doctors earned an average of £111,900 before tax in 2020-21 in England.
The basic annual salary for an MP is £84,144, while ministers earn tens of thousands of pounds more on top of this.
GPs voted in favour of having a ballot for strike action earlier this month because of the immense pressure and stress they are working under.
The poll is understood to have been an unofficial attempt to “gauge sentiment” on future action and does not mean a vote on strikes is currently planned.
Ms Clarke also defended the decision not to pay nurses more, arguing that the “NHS budget has never been higher”.
Nursing is widely recognised as one of the toughest jobs in the UK , with the profession put under more pressure than ever before during the pandemic.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN), which is holding its first nationwide strikes for the first time in its 106-year history, is calling for a pay rise of 5% above inflation.
In summer, the Government announced that NHS staff in England would get a rise of £1,400 for all pay bands but unions argued it was effectively a pay cut due to inflation.
The average salary for a nurse is £34,000, according to the RCN.
The country is set to face its worst week of strikes yet, with nurses, paramedics, Border Force, driving examiners and DWP staff all set to take industrial action over pay and working conditions.
RCN’s chief Pat Cullen has accused Health Secretary Steve Barclay of being “disrespectful and disingenuous” after she revealed he refused to even discuss pay at crunch talks.
Mr Barclay has said his door is open but has refused to reopen talks on pay.
Unite leader Sharon Graham warned he will "have to carry the can if patients suffer" and unions will not "blink first" to break the deadlock.
"It's Steve Barclay who is holding the country to ransom," she told The Mirror.
Dr Robert Laurenson, co-chair of the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee, said: “A simple look at the numbers shows that we have 1,900 fewer GPs in England than we did in 2015, even as the population has risen and GPs deliver more appointments than ever before. There are over 130,000 posts in secondary care lying vacant and we would need about 50,000 more doctors just to get us to the EU per-person average.
“Mr Clarke can make comparisons with whatever profession he wants, but the results speak for themselves – undervalued doctors and an NHS under historic, unbearable pressure. The Government are keen to talk about inefficiencies but they've created their own: a sick population is an unproductive population and an unproductive population means a sick economy.
“Junior doctors are not going to accept this kind of complacency from politicians about their worth to the country and will fight for their full pay restoration"
