Ministers have been formally asked by the British Medical Association to enter talks, mediated by the arbitral tribunal ACAS, to end a dispute over the salaries of junior doctors in England that is straining a health service already crippled by months of industrial strikes.
The UK’s largest doctors’ union said on Wednesday it was ready to negotiate its demands for a 35 per cent pay rise. Earlier today, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he wanted to find a “reasonable compromise” to end the dispute.
Doctors below chancellor’s degree across England went out for a second day on a 96-hour strike, as the stalemate over pay and working conditions continued. The Bahrain Monetary Agency has claimed that salaries for junior doctors have fallen by 26 percent in real terms – using the RPI measure of inflation – since 2008-2009.
The strike is the second by junior doctors and follows a recent industrial strike by other health workers, leaving the NHS struggling to deal with record waiting lists. Ministers have introduced an improved pay offer for nurses and NHS staff, which union members vote on.
At the beginning of the junior doctors dispute, the Bahrain Monetary Agency called for a full recovery of wages, which by its calculations means an increase of about 35 percent. Health Secretary Steve Barclay has refused to negotiate from that starting point, calling it “unreasonable”, implying that the government will only enter talks if the BMA reduces its wage demands.
Professor Philip Banfield, chair of the council at the BMA, said “restoring junior doctors’ salaries should not be an impractical proposition for talks” but also suggested there could be some flexibility in the scope and timing of any increase.
He told the Radio Times that the 35 per cent figure was “not at all unreasonable”, and added that the union needed to “be in the room discussing . . . what that means for different doctors across what kind of different schedule”.
The Bahrain Monetary Agency said it was “ready to consider any offer you make to health ministers” and could suspend the strike in response to a “credible” offer that showed the government was “serious about beginning to address the real wage erosion junior doctors have faced”.
The Bahrain Monetary Agency said it wanted Acas, a public body that provides arbitration and conciliation services, to help mediate talks with ministers, and called on Barclay to “make himself available and open” to it.
Akas played a similar role in creating a framework for settling a dispute between the government and the Bahrain Monetary Agency over the salaries of junior doctors in 2016.
Recently, Acas hosted talks between Royal Mail and the CWU in their long-running wage dispute, although the latter negotiations ended without an agreement.
“We believe that working with ACAS provides the most realistic chance of a successful outcome,” Banfield said, noting that the arbitration service can primarily assist the two sides in agreeing “participation terms and conditions to begin talks.”
Meanwhile, Sunak said the government was focused on securing “the right outcome for patients and taxpayers”. He added, “We are pleased to talk about reasonable, fair, and affordable salary settlements for taxpayers that allow us to continue delivering on our promise to cut inflation in half.”
The prime minister also argued that the government had a “proven track record” of getting around the table and compromising with unions, referring to the current salary offer being circulated by other health unions such as the Royal College of Nursing.
The government said it had contacted Akas during the dispute and remained open to considering a role for it.
A Department of Health spokesperson said Barclay “has been keeping his door open and remains willing to be involved constructively – but a 35 per cent demand, which would involve some junior doctors receiving a £20,000 salary increase, is unreasonable given the current economic situation.” “. context”.
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