The leader of train drivers‘ union Aslef has said resident doctors are “not asking for enough” in their pay dispute with Wes Streeting, arguing they should earn more than his own members.
Resident doctors formerly known as junior doctors, were awarded an average 5.4 per cent pay increase this financial year, following a 22 per cent rise over the previous two years.
However, the British Medical Association (BMA) says real-terms pay has still fallen by around 20 per cent since 2008, and is pushing for a 29 per cent pay increase to achieve full “pay restoration”.
“They’re not asking for enough,” Mick Whelan told PoliticsHome. “What they haven’t asked for is all the money they’re owed for that pay restoration.
“My people earn more than doctors. I’m not going to say my people should learn less – but I do believe that doctors should earn more.
“The idea we’ve started this race to the bottom – we’ve got no respect for vocations anymore.
“We’ve got a crisis in traditional vocational areas, where some of the cleverest people in the country give their lives to either go into the health service or go to teach children and teenagers, and then we don’t respect the skillsets they have. They would be far better off going into business.”
Train drivers typically get paid between £53,000 and £87,000, with the average salary estimated to be about £69,000 in 2024-25. The government expects average full-time basic pay for a resident doctor to reach about £54,300 in 2025/26 following the new deal.
Mr Whelan’s comments come after the health secretary hit out at resident doctors for having squandered the “considerable goodwill” they had with government after staging five days of strikes across England.
Writing in the Guardian, Wes Streeting asked the BMA to drop what he called its “unnecessary and unreasonable rush to strike action” and also recognise that the government has a responsibility to all health service staff.
“We are back to where we were two weeks ago, when I sat down in good faith and offered to work intensively with them over a few weeks to negotiate a package of measures that would make a real difference in meeting the costs of doctors’ training, the costs associated with being a doctor and the lack of promotion opportunities.
“The only difference between now and a fortnight ago is the damage that the BMA has done to the NHS through its reckless strike action.”
In a letter addressed to BMA resident doctors committee co-chairs Dr Ross Nieuwoudt and Dr Melissa Ryan, Mr Streeting acknowledged a second dispute raised by the BMA about a lack of training places for doctors, but said this could have been “avoided”.
He reiterated that the government “cannot move on pay”, but is “prepared to negotiate on areas related to your conditions at work, career progression and tangible measures which would put money in your members’ pockets”.
In a statement, the co-chairs of the committee said: “Resident doctors want this to have been their last strike.
“We are asking Mr Streeting to leave the political rhetoric behind and put the future of the NHS first.
“He could have prevented strike action if he had made a credible offer last week, instead of what we got: the offer of more talks.”
Details on the number of appointments, procedures and operations postponed as a result are expected to be published later this week.
It is expected that fewer patients were affected compared with previous strikes after hospitals were ordered to press ahead with as much pre-planned care as possible during the walkout across England, which ended at 7am on Wednesday.
In previous walkouts, the majority of non-urgent care was postponed.
And hospital leaders said that fewer resident doctors took to picket lines in the latest walkout compared with those which took place previously.
The Department for Health and Social Care has been contacted for comment.
