A new pay offer has been made to NHS consultants which could end long-running strike action in England.
The British Medical Association (BMA) said it would see most senior doctors get an extra 4.95% payment for this financial year, on top of the 6% annual rise they’ve already been given.
The offer also involves changes to the pay scale structure and a commitment to reform the pay review body that makes recommendations on doctors’ wages.
The BMA will now put the offer to doctors to vote on whether to accept the deal. If they do, it would end six months of consultant strikes that have led to thousands of cancelled operations.
It comes just two weeks after the new health secretary Victoria Atkins took over the job from Steve Barclay.
Dr Vishal Sharma, BMA consultants committee chair, said: “We are pleased that after a month of intense talks and more than six months of strike action we never wanted to take, we have now got an offer we can put to members. It is a huge shame that it has needed consultants to take industrial action to get the Government to this point when we called for talks many months ago.
“The 4.95% investment and much-needed changes to the pay scale system comes after we successfully persuaded the Government to reform the punitive pension taxation laws earlier this year, and we also now have commitments to reforming the pay review process, which has been a key ask from the profession throughout our dispute. Only by restoring the independence of this process can we hope to restore consultant pay over the coming years.”
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