The main dispute revolves around pay, with pay rates for junior doctors and consultants having fallen by more than 35% in real terms over the last 15 years. Credit: Shutterstock / Matthew Troke.

Junior doctors across the UK have voted to continue with another six months of industrial action as they continue to urge the government to come up with a serious plan to address pay.

The British Medical Association (BMA) has confirmed that 98% of its junior doctor membership voted to continue with the industrial action that brought the UK healthcare industry to a standstill throughout the winter of 2023 and early 2024.

Go deeper with GlobalData

Premium Insights

The gold standard of business intelligence.

Find out more

The BMA has said that 62% of its membership took part in the vote which calls for strikes starting from 3 April to 19 September 2024. Last year saw the first-ever joint strike action between senior consultants and junior doctors in the organisation’s history, alongside strikes from UK nurses and midwives staff in Northern Ireland.

The main dispute revolves around pay, with pay rates for junior doctors and consultants having fallen by more than 35% in real terms over the last 15 years, when compared with the rate of inflation.

Junior doctors committee co-chairs Robert Laurenson and Vivek Trivedi said: “It has now been a year since we began strike action. That is a year of strikes too many. The Government believed it could ignore, delay, and offer excuses long enough that we would simply give up. That attitude has now led to the NHS wasting £3bn covering the strikes. This is more than double the cost of settling our whole claim.

See Also:

“As we see in the results of today’s ballot, delaying tactics will not work: doctors are still determined to see their pay cuts reversed, and they are willing to keep striking another six months to achieve that.”

How well do you really know your competitors?

Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.

Company Profile – free sample

Thank you!

Your download email will arrive shortly

Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample

We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form

By GlobalData
Visit our Privacy Policy for more information about our services, how we may use, process and share your personal data, including information of your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications. Our services are intended for corporate subscribers and you warrant that the email address submitted is your corporate email address.

Junior doctors comprise approximately 50% of the National Health Service’s (NHS) staff, meaning that ongoing strikes will likely lead to significant delays in appointments and surgeries. In the BMA vote, only approximately 2.3% of members voted against strike action.

Laurenson and Trivedi added: “No doctor wants to be on strike for a second longer than they have to. But it took us 15 years of declining pay to get here. Today’s re-ballot shows that doctors understand that reversing this means being in the struggle for the long haul. We ask the Health Secretary to come forward as soon as possible with a new offer – and make sure not a single further strike day need be called.”