Labour will be told they must promise junior doctors a return to 2008 pay levels if they want to end the long-running dispute crippling the NHS.
On Tuesday Wes Streeting will meet the British Medical Association for the first time since becoming health secretary for introductory talks designed to find a way out of a campaign of strikes that has lasted more than a year.
But he will face a crucial early test of his desire to reset relations, with the doctors’ union expected to begin the meeting by urging Streeting to acknowledge that doctors’ pay has fallen in real terms since 2008 and accept the principle of getting it back to those levels.
Streeting has not ruled out doing so, and is thought willing to discuss the principle of pay restoration, but this is only likely to happen as part of a wider agreement.
Doctors’ hopes have been raised by Streeting’s argument that pay restoration is a “journey not an event”, which they believe means he would be open to a symbolic promise to get pay back to 2008 levels when circumstances allow. Even without a time frame, such a promise is seen as key by doctors’ leaders to resetting relations, after the Conservative government consistently refused to accept this principle.
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Negotiations are likely to take weeks even if today’s introductory talks go well but Streeting is said to be “optimistic” that a deal can be done, pointing to Wales and Scotland where doctors settled for a rise of 12.4 per cent. However, doctors rejected a similar deal offered by the Conservatives in England.
Crucially, both the Welsh and Scottish governments promised to work towards “pay restoration back to 2008 levels”. Even though no timescale was attached, the promise was one of the reasons doctors voted to approve a smaller rise for 2023-24, alongside other detailed differences.
Union sources say that talks with the Conservative government foundered as ministers refused to acknowledge the erosion of doctors’ pay and hope that that Labour will change this as part of a reset of relations.
However, making such a promise risks setting a costly precedent as other health unions are likely to demand similar pay deals. Nurses are already furious that they were forced to settle for a 5 per cent rise while strikes forced ministers to offer doctors more, and are threatening a further campaign of industrial action if they do not get an above-inflation deal this year.
Doctors originally wanted a 35 per cent pay rise, which Streeting has said is not affordable. Experts such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies have said that doctors’ pay has fallen about 16 per cent since 2008.
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Philip Banfield, chairman of the British Medical Association’s governing council, said: “What we’ve seen since 2008 is a fall in the value of junior doctors’ pay, so we’re asking for that to be restored.”
He stressed “that can be done over a number of years” and doctors were “willing to be patient” about pay rises.
“I do expect Labour to value doctors more than the previous government. It realises that it needs to engage with doctors. It realises that it cannot pay new doctors so poorly,” Banfield told the BBC.
“We’ve already said, as has the new secretary of state, that this is a journey. We’ve accepted that restoring pay may take time.”
About 1.5 million appointments and operations have been cancelled so far by the NHS as a result of more than a year of strikes, most recently a five-day walkout that ended two days before the general election. Junior doctors have warned that they are prepared to keep striking into the winter if they cannot agree a deal.
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Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of the hospitals’ group NHS Providers, said: “We’re pleased that the secretary of state is meeting quickly with junior doctors, and hopefully we’ll see a resolution to that, because, of course, industrial actions had a huge impact on the service over the last 18 months.”
