Resident doctors in England have begun voting on whether to accept the Government’s latest offer on pay and jobs.
The referendum, which runs until midday on Friday 26 June, was set in return for calling off four days of strike action planned for this week.
The BMA’s resident doctor and final year medical school members in England, including academic trainees and those in public health, will now decide if the offer is sufficient to end the industrial dispute, which began in July 2025. If they accept the deal, the mandate for strike action will end.
The offer includes 4,500 specialty training places in the next three years in a bid to tackle the jobs bottleneck.
All locally employed doctors would be offered the terms and conditions of the standard 2016 resident doctor contract.
Offer details
Resident doctors will receive an average 6.6 per cent pay uplift, when combined with this year’s Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration recommendation. This would be fully delivered by April 2027, with a further uplift in April 2027 following next year’s review body recommendation.
This would be achieved by faster nodal point reform and pay uplifts twice a year contingent on career progression.
The offer also includes a commitment from the Government to cover exam, portfolio and mandatory medical royal college membership fees.
It guarantees annual career progression for doctors who work less than full time who meet their competencies.
And there is an increased pay premium for medical academics.
FLETCHER: We will respect doctors' choice
BMA resident doctors committee chair Jack Fletcher said: ‘After far too long without a credible offer on the table, at last the Government has come up with a package that is worth consideration by our members.
‘It is now up to doctors themselves to decide on their future. Tens of thousands of hard-working frontline doctors will be looking at this offer in detail and making their choice. As a democratic union we will respect their wishes whichever path they choose.
‘If they decide that this is another real step on the road to pay restoration, and a jobs package that gives more certainty to their careers, then the strikes will end. If they do not, then strikes will continue, and they will have to escalate in intensity with another re-ballot.
‘I will now await their decision. Either way, they have already waited far too long for a resolution to this dispute. Now is their chance to have their say.’