Resident doctor strikes in England have been called off while the British Medical Association (BMA) ballots its members on a new offer.
The BMA announced on Saturday that the government had made a ‘last-minute offer’ and the walk-outs due to take place from 7am today to 6.59am on Friday were being suspended.
It said that a referendum would be held for its resident doctors members to vote on whether the deal is sufficient.
The union said that the offer included in combination with this year’s recommendation from the Doctors’ and Dentists’ Review Body (DDRB) an average 6.6% pay uplift to be fully delivered by April 2027, with a further uplift in April 2027 following the DDRB recommendation.
This will be achieved through faster nodal point reform and pay uplifts twice a year contingent on career progression, the union added.
Dr Jack Fletcher, chair of the BMA’s Resident Doctors Committee (RDC), said: ‘We have always been clear that no strikes needed to go ahead if we received an offer appropriate to put to our members.
‘This should not have been left to the last moment, but we hold up our end of the bargain when the government shifts its position.’
Dr Fletcher added: ‘Doctors will now have their say. If they say “no” to this offer we will have to continue our plans for further escalated action across next month.’
The deal also included 4,500 specialty training places over the next three years, improvements to contracts for locally employed doctors and exam, portfolio and membership fees to be paid for.
Health secretary James Murray on Saturday said that it was a ‘positive and welcome development’ that the BMA had called off the ‘unnecessary strikes’.
He said the government will work ‘intensively’ with the BMA over the coming days to finalise details of the deal before it is put to their members.
NHS chief executive Sir Jim Mackey wrote to NHS chief executives and directors on Saturday urging them to ‘pull together’ to promote the offer.
‘The next few weeks are critical: we all have to pull together to show what we’ve delivered to improve working lives of resident doctors locally and promote the deal,’ he said.
