The BMA’s resident doctors committee (RDC) in England has accepted the Government’s pay offer, after 53% of eligible BMA members voted in favour in a referendum. Turnout was 57%, with 32,932 doctors voting. 

 

Dr Jack Fletcher, chair of RDC, said: 

 

“Resident doctors have spoken. They have decided that the current offer is sufficient to continue on the road to pay restoration, and sufficient to address the absurd lack of jobs in the NHS. The strikes will now end.  

 

“These strikes did not need to happen. We spent far too long at loggerheads with the Government when a solution in everyone’s interest was waiting for us: more jobs for doctors, better pay for doctors, and a better-staffed NHS secured for patients well into the future. This is what constructive negotiations can achieve. Next time we hope they can be done without a single picket line having to form – all it takes is a Government willing to think ahead and think creatively. 

 

“We hope there does not need to be a next time, however. Because this is by no means the end of the road for pay restoration: even with our progress in the last few years we are still nearly a fifth behind 2008 levels of pay. It will need determination from Government to keep this journey going.  

 

"We are putting the pay review process on notice – if it cannot deliver continued pay improvements, then we risk once again falling back into dispute in future. And without genuine delivery on the jobs front, we will once again see training bottlenecks throttling our careers and with it, further discord.  

 

“I’d like to thank everyone who stood on a picket line, who organised, argued and raised their voice on the issues of pay and jobs. Your continued dedication and refusal to give in has moved us miles from where we started, and you should be proud. When we organise, we win.” 

Notes to editors