Doctors short-changed on pay rise

The BMA in Northern Ireland has warned the health minister that failing to give doctors their pay rise in full was ‘totally unacceptable’.

BMA NI council chair Alan Stout said doctors were angry, outraged and disillusioned – and that there was now a total lack of trust in the health department.

He will now meet branch of practice chairs to discuss the way forward – this is likely to include considering industrial action.

Unlike elsewhere in the UK, doctors in Northern Ireland have not yet received the 6% pay rise recommended by the DDRB (review body on doctors' and dentists' remuneration) for 2024-25. At a meeting today minister Mike Nesbitt said he was not able to make the full pay award.

Dr Stout said: ‘On behalf of all doctors in Northern Ireland, I made it clear this was totally unacceptable. I will now meet with the chairs of all the BMA branch of practice committees in Northern Ireland to seek their views on how to proceed.  

‘The scale of anger and outrage I have been hearing over the course of the last week is unprecedented. Doctors here are totally disillusioned with the Department of Health and its attitude towards doctors’ pay. They seem to believe that by paying us less than counterparts in the rest of the UK, it will somehow motivate us to work harder to address the chaos our health system is in.’

Dr Stout said the health service in Northern Ireland – which has the worst waiting lists in the UK – could not function without staff. ‘It really is time to stop this cycle of doctors here constantly playing catch-up with the rest of the UK on pay. Pay awards need to be built into the financial planning the department undertakes, so they are not constantly caught by surprise at the notion staff will get a pay rise.’

In the summer, consultants in Northern Ireland agreed a new pay deal, while resident doctors – who had taken several days of strike action – and specialist, associate specialist and specialty doctors are in contract negotiations.

‘All of these talks were entered into with the belief that DDRB would be paid as recommended,’ Dr Stout added. ‘Today’s news that the fully backdated DDRB uplift for this year may not be forthcoming, undermines all that work and creates a total lack of trust that the department will uphold any contract that is negotiated and agreed.’

Meanwhile, first minister Michelle O’Neill said a winter of strike action over pay was ‘not inevitable’. She said that, while it was a challenging situation, the executive would be working ‘night and day’ to get a solution.