It is the government’s failure to make a satisfactory offer after 15 years of pay restraint that has fuelled ongoing strike action by junior doctors (Junior doctors in England plan ballot for more strikes, 8 January). That this position should have been reached at all also reflects the inadequacy, as currently operated, of the independent pay review process, initiated in the 1960s to prevent just such disputes.
In the past, significant catch-up awards could be recommended. As a junior doctor in 1970, I benefited from a Doctors’ and Dentists’ Review Body (DDRB) award of 30%, exceeding the British Medical Association’s submission for 26%, which the Labour government accepted in full, in the middle of a general election campaign. Its decision to limit consultants to 15% prompted the resignation of the DDRB and retaliation by the BMA. Labour, somewhat unexpectedly, lost the election.
The government says the doctors’ claim is unaffordable. The DDRB has to take account of this, but affordability is essentially a political construct. What is not affordable is a demoralised workforce able to deploy its skills elsewhere. It should be a priority for the next government to re-examine the remit and workings of the review body to ensure that decisions on doctors’ pay (and that for other professionals, whose machinery is modelled on the DDRB) are taken at as great a remove from the political process as possible.
In the meantime, although the parallels with 1970 are inexact, Rishi Sunak will surely not be so foolish as to allow government intransigence to provoke continuing strike action up to the next election.
Dr Anthony Isaacs
London
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