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The new Labour government has offered junior NHS doctors in England a pay rise of 22 per cent across two years in a bid to end to a wave of strikes by medics that has dragged on the health service.
Officials said the British Medical Association would put a proposal to junior doctors that would amount to a pay rise of 22.3 per cent. The figure is short of the 35 per cent demanded by the union but a sizeable advance on offers by the previous Conservative government.
An agreement to raise doctors’ pay over several years could finally break the deadlock that has led to medics striking 11 times, most recently earlier this month.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves will announce the details of the offer in a statement later on Monday as she attempts to pin blame on the Tories for what she will call a £20bn fiscal hole in the government’s finances.
The increase in pay for junior doctors would be for this financial year, and also be backdated to 2023-24. The offer was first reported by The Times.
Downing Street declined to “get into detailed running commentary on negotiations” but said “the government is determined to do the hard work necessary to finally bring these strikes to an end”.
After five weeks of talks late last year, the medical union rejected the then- Tory government’s offer of a 3 per cent pay increase, on top of a roughly 9 per cent rise already offered.
The BMA said at the time the proposal was not “credible” and did not address 15 years of inflation-linked pay erosion.
Labour has been confident of securing a deal after BMA members in Wales voted overwhelmingly last month to accept a government offer of an additional 12.4 per cent pay for junior doctors in 2023-24 — echoing terms of an agreement reached in Scotland last year.