Sally-Ann Hart, MP for Hastings and Rye, has welcomed the recent announcement that around 150,000 NHS doctors will start to receive a pay rise this month, after the government accepted in full the recommendations of the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration.
The pay award will see doctors in training, consultants, speciality and associate specialist (SAS) doctors and dentists receive their pay rise backdated to April. This pay rise balances the need to keep inflation in check while giving staff significant pay increases, with doctors in training receiving an average pay rise of 8.8% and consultants receiving a 6% increase.
Sally-Ann Hart commented that: “I am pleased that junior doctors and other NHS staff will be receiving pay increases with reforms also being made to their pension schemes. The value of the work they do for to this country is immense and it is imperative that the government does all that it can to retain such staff.”
First year doctors in training will receive a 10.3% salary uplift, pushing the basic pay for a first year junior doctor from £29,300 to £32,300. Junior doctors in core training with three years’ experience will see their salary increase from £40,200 to £43,900.
Pay scales for consultants are also increasing by 6%, meaning starting basic full-time pay will rise to £93,600. Taken together with on-call payments and other activities, the average consultant’s NHS earnings will increase to £134,000 a year. This is in addition to their 4.5% pay rise last year and significant pension reforms which saw the annual allowance for tax-free pension saving increase by 50% to £60,000 and removing the £1 million lifetime cap.
In addition to the pay award, some staff will benefit from performance pay, overtime, pay progression and pay rises from promotion.
Health and social care secretary Steve Barclay said: “I hugely value the work of NHS staff, and we’re giving junior doctors, consultants and senior NHS staff a fair and reasonable pay rise as recommended by the independent pay review bodies – which is above what most in the public and private sectors are receiving. We have worked at speed to ensure they will start receiving this in their pay packets this month. I’ve been clear this pay award is final and I urge the BMA to end its needless strikes – these are only serving to lengthen waiting lists, harm patients and put more pressure on their colleagues.”
The government is funding this pay award through prioritisation within existing departmental budgets, with frontline services being protected. More widely, and alongside the pension tax reforms announced at budget, the government is implementing new retirement flexibilities to help retain experienced doctors, whilst making it easier and more attractive for retired staff to return.
From 1 April 2023, restrictions were lifted on the amount of work that staff can do if they return to service after retirement, and allowed staff who retire and return to re-join the scheme and build more pension. From 1 October 2023, a further partial retirement option for staff will be introduced which will allow them to claim a portion of their pension benefits but continue working and building further pension.
This means more clinicians to provide appointments, ease winter pressures and deliver care to patients, as well the retention of crucial knowledge and experience to ensure patients are receiving first class care.
Source: Sally-Ann Hart’s office
Image Credits: Chris Lawson .
I am a little confused by this story. At the beginning it indicates it was written by a Rye News reporter but at the end it states the source of the article is from the MP’s office. There was also no critique of what came from the MP’s office. The pay rise for junior doctors, is far below what they have been striking about. There was also no mention of the hugely demanding work environment for junior doctors. These are some of the issues behind the strikes and why junior doctors and consultants are leaving the UK.
Reading this, you’d have no idea that consultant doctors will strike between 19-21 September,
junior doctors will strike between 20-23 September, and health workers associated with Unite will strike between 13-15 September and 16-22 September… Instead, we have the Prime Minister and Steve Barclay , after 13 years, trying to blame their failure on exhausted doctors, nurses and health workers. Straight out of Stanley Baldwin’s playbook… Pretty shabby, and somewhat in contrast to all the appeals to applaud health workers during Covid…
When my Dad was seriously ill in hospital in the Spring, during the earlier industrial action, I really had to reflect very hard upon how I felt about the NHS strikes… My Dad’s incredible nurses were tending to him and then going and standing on the picket line. Thankfully, my Dad’s treatment wasn’t compromised at all, bcs those caring for him were absolutely committed to their vocation.
I see the situation like this, if we are prepared to entrust the health of ourselves and our loved ones to doctors, nurses, paramedics and health-workers, we surely have to trust them to diagnose the acute sickness in their own crumbling professional environment too.
This must be a Conservative central office instruction brief to Their MPs~ I read almost the same thing from a London MP in a localLondon paper last week. It’s just a statement from her office.
It is so lazy to automatically keep reprinting chunks of publicity statements from the local Conservative party office.
The mainstream media have been covering this complex dispute for months, so we are already reasonably informed about work contexts, hours, culture, privatisation, waste and certainly about the Government’s lack of communication and delay. The extent of the actual “news” here is that the local MP welcomes the pay deal!
These government ‘cut and paste’ Public Relations exercises must stop. Rye News has been picked up previously.
To understand the true situation we need a reply from the BMA.
Does this have anything directly to do with our local MP … or is it just shamelessly promoting central office propaganda? Reads like a news release for national media reporting – and I struggle to see anything specifically local in this or that our MP has actively done other than to fall into line with the government.
And where’s the balance? Did the ‘Rye News Reporter’ seek other perspectives and opinions from, say, the BMA or opposition parties so as to produce a measured and balanced article? Will you also be publishing other opinions and responses to this issue as a follow-up piece – just so readers can get a more rounded perspectives?
I would more like to hear our MP’s opinion on specific local matters that we look to her to represent us on and progress. It’s a long list of issues she could better be speaking to the local community about …