Junior doctors in England will go on strike for 72 hours in March in protest over pay if their next vote produces a majority for industrial action.
Their union, the British Medical Association (BMA), issued the warning as it claimed junior doctors had suffered a “shocking and unjustifiable” 26.1% cut in their earnings since 2008.
The union will begin voting out more than 45,000 junior doctors from Monday in a move that could see an escalation in the growing wave of NHS staff walkouts over their pay.
On the 18th and 19th of January the nurses will go on strike for the third time, while the ambulance staff must refuse to work for the second and third time on the 11th and 23rd of January.
The BMA made it clear that if junior doctors vote to strike, which looks likely, they will withdraw their jobs from all NHS services, including emergency care, for three days. Voting will last six weeks until February 20.
Any shutdown could cause major disruption to hospitals and other services, including surgeries and outpatient appointments. NHS trusts will have to reduce the services they can provide as senior doctors are redeployed from their regular duties to cover for their junior colleagues.
Junior doctors are trainee doctors who have not yet acquired consultant status. However, despite their title, they include doctors who range from those who have just qualified to those in their mid-to-late 30s who already have a lot of experience, such as registrars.
Hospital bosses expressed deep concern about the potential impact of a three-day shutdown.
Miriam Deakin, director of policy at hospital body NHS Providers, said the BMA’s announcement was “deeply worrying”. If the vote results in a strike, “trust leaders will do everything possible to minimize disruption and prioritize the safe delivery of care and services for patients.”
He added: “Trust leaders are very concerned about the possibility of a prolonged or co-ordinated strike by health unions in the coming months. They also understand the factors that have prompted junior doctors and other health workers to vote for industrial action.”
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said a 72-hour walkout by junior doctors “will be of great concern to health leaders”.
Both he and Deakin urged ministers to open talks with health unions over pay, something the health secretary, Steve Barclay, has consistently refused to do. Unions have rejected Barclay’s award of a £1,400 pay rise for this year and want a rise that is more in line with inflation, to prevent staff from suffering a fall in real terms.
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“In the face of increased winter pressure, a large vacancy hole and upcoming strikes in January which will affect services, the Government cannot sit idly by and allow even more strikes to occur when attention to patient is at stake and unions must be open to compromise.”
The junior doctors were not among the staff covered by this year’s pay round as they are in the final year of a four-year deal agreed in 2019 which saw them get a 2% rise by 2022 -23.
However, the BMA pointed to the fact that the doctors’ and dentists’ pay review body, which advises ministers on pay for these professions, has said 2% is “probably not enough” to help the NHS to improve the retention of young people. doctors and their productivity and also that an “improvement” clause in the 2% plan allows ministers to improve this figure if circumstances change.
The Department of Health and Social Care said: “Our multi-year pay deal with the British Medical Association is increasing junior doctors’ pay by a cumulative 8.2% in 2023. We have also invested an extra £90m to offer more experienced junior doctors a higher salary, increased allowances for those who work more often at weekends and increased rates of pay for night shifts.