Finding out you have not been paid what you should have been this month is particularly tiresome when the Government has barely addressed historic grievances on remuneration.

So, to help you check complex calculations around your wages, the BMA has launched a pay checker tool for resident doctors working under the 2016 contract, which is available on its website.

You can use it to make sure you are receiving the pay you are entitled to. Check the accuracy of your pay by entering your rota, work schedule and other details. Entering your rota also initiates a safe-working check.

Pay errors are an all-too common issue. The tool is designed for use on mobile or desktop and claims to offer clarity and control in identifying errors – and guidance and support in contacting your employer to rectify these.

The program guides you to input your rota and other pay details for each rotation. This enables you to check the accuracy of your gross pay and keep track of past calculations. It also carries out a safe-working check on the rota you enter.

It provides downloadable reports showing a breakdown of pay elements and highlighting where errors have occurred – and if you wish to contact your employer to rectify errors, pay checker generates email wording based on your relevant calculations.

BMA resident doctors committee deputy chair Thomas Cheliotis-James said the pay checker tool was set up because ‘resident doctors' pay under the 2016 contract depends on many separate elements and can be difficult for doctors in rotational jobs to keep track of changes. If a doctor doesn't spot an error themselves, nobody else will. We built the pay checker so that resident doctors can put in their rota and see within minutes what they should have been paid’.

He believes it has helped doctors because, ‘since August 2025, doctors have run thousands of calculations that flagged an underpayment, adding up to millions of pounds, with the average underpayment coming out at approximately £7,600. Underpayments were flagged at 188 of the 189 NHS employers doctors checked against. Incorrect payment is a systemic problem, and this is one tool to fix it.

‘Every one of those figures is a doctor who now has the evidence to go back to their employer and get what they're owed. Our message to every resident doctor is simple: check your pay.’

Having the BMA check pay became a more common occurrence during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a time when the health service needed all the doctors it could get.

The doctors who put themselves forward did so at considerable personal risk. But when one doctor, interviewed by The Doctor magazine in 2021, covered shifts on a COVID ward, and contracted the virus, the sick pay was lamentably low.

The junior doctor was hit hard by the illness. She was off for three weeks, and then four more following a brief return to work. When she asked about sick leave, she was told that locums on zero-hour contracts normally did not receive it at all.

But, given COVID presented such risks to doctors, the employers had decided to average out previous earnings over a reference period and pay sick leave on that basis.

The problem for this doctor is that she had been recovering from an unrelated illness prior to the COVID locums, which significantly reduced the average earnings in the reference period chosen by the employer.

The doctor’s BMA employment adviser took the matter up with the HR department. HR was initially reluctant to budge but, after several discussions with the BMA, it agreed to apply the reference period in the most favourable way possible and base the sick pay on the time when the member had previously worked the most shifts.

The BMA adviser said the case took a considerable amount of discussion with the employer, but it had produced a more positive outcome for someone who was putting her own health at risk by looking after COVID patients at a time of national crisis.

Pandemics are not the only time pay can go awry. When a junior doctor rotates during training to a new trust, there is often a wearying ritual they must go through. It is not uncommon for something to be wrong.

It could be with work schedules, rotas, pay, the contract, where they are supposed to be working or regarding pre-employment checks, which every new employing trust has to ensure are completed before a doctor can be cleared to work in a clinical environment.

No one expects employers to be perfect, but there are far, far too many errors, which can sometimes take years of unpicking. What is particularly disappointing about this case is that the doctor was expected to pay for the employer’s mistake.

The doctor, interviewed by The Doctor magazine in 2022, was two weeks into a new rotation when he was told he had missed having an occupational health clearance. This was the employer’s fault. The member was not informed he could not start his new rotation, nor was his department advised of the same. Furthermore, the employer added a huge insult to injury by telling the doctor that he would not be paid for the two weeks he had already worked. The doctor contacted the BMA.

The employment adviser allocated to support the member wrote to the head of medical staffing at the hospital, explaining that the member had worked in good faith, carrying out all his duties and the failure in completing the checks was their error, not the doctor’s, so it would be unreasonable of the employer to penalise this doctor by not paying him his wages.

The adviser had radio silence from the employer so patiently chased it up and tried to arrange a telephone meeting. She then advised the member to instigate early conciliation with ACAS to protect his claim in this case as it was deemed to be an unlawful deduction from wages claim, if the employer persisted in not paying him.

ACAS can talk to the claimant and respondent about a dispute at work, giving the chance for agreement without having to go to an employment tribunal. Soon after ACAS got involved and likely the employer realised they could not ignore this situation any longer, the employer started engaging with the BMA adviser and conceded to pay the doctor his full two weeks of salary.

The occupational health clearance was completed within days of the trust realising the error.

This case was resolved over a period of four weeks following the dispute arising, and our member is happy for it to be used as an example to warn others of what can go wrong and the benefit of contacting the BMA at the first sniff of a problem at work.

Chris Patterson is production editor of The Doctor digital magazine