The British Medical Association (BMA) has defended a new round of resident doctor walkouts starting on Friday, insisting medics’ pay is still “way down” compared with 2008 and that the government has failed to finish “a journey” towards restoring it.
BMA chair Dr Tom Dolphin told Sky News the dispute remains rooted in years of pay erosion that have left resident doctors far behind other public sector workers.
“When we started the dispute, […] the lowest level of the resident doctors were being paid £14 an hour,” he said.
“There were some pay rises over the last couple of years that brought that partly back to the value it should be at, but not all the way.
“The secretary of state (Wes Streeting) himself called it a journey, implying there were further steps to come, but we haven’t seen that.”
When asked if the row ultimately “comes down to money”, he replied: “In the sense that the secretary of state doesn’t want to or isn’t able to fund the pay increases to match the value that we had in 2008.”
Dr Dolphin argued that while “the general worker in the economy as a whole” has seen pay catch up since the 2008 financial crash, “doctors are still way down”.
The government points out that its 29% settlement last year was one of the largest in the public sector and was intended to draw a line under two years of walkouts.
After the most recent pay awards, in 2025/26 a medic just out of university receives a basic salary of £38,831 and has estimated average earnings of £45,900 after factors like extra pay for unsociable hours are taken into account, according to medical think tank the Nuffield Trust.
That average figure rises to £54,400 by the second year and a more senior speciality registrar earns an average of £80,500.
The BMA says that when the dispute started, the most junior doctors were making around £14 per hour. That works out at £29,120 per year for a 40-hour week.
That’s very close to the earnings of a doctor fresh out of medical school in 2022/23 – £29,384, according to Full Fact.
But that’s over a 52-week year without taking into account paid holiday or unsociable hours.
But Dr Dolphin said the deal still fell short: “The gap was biggest for doctors and needed the biggest amount of restoration, and that’s what we got.”
He defended the BMA’s use of the Retail Price Index (RPI), a metric rejected by the Office for National Statistics, saying it “better reflects the costs people face”.
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‘Who do you think is treating the patients?’
With Chancellor Rachel Reeves preparing her budget amid warnings of deep cuts, Dr Dolphin said the BMA is not demanding an immediate cash injection.
“We’re quite happy for that money to be deferred with some kind of multi-year pay deal so that we can end the dispute and avoid having further industrial action about pay for several years to come,” he said.
“Money spent in the NHS is returned to the economy. For every pound you spend, you get several pounds back.”
When pressed on whether the £1.7bn cost of previous strike action could have been better spent on treatment and technology for NHS cancer patients, he hit back: “Who do you think is treating the cancer patients? It’s the doctors.”
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Dr Dolphin rejected suggestions that the dispute could destabilise the government, calling the idea “implausible”.
He admitted prolonged strikes have tested public patience, but said the government had left doctors with no choice.
“A prolonged industrial dispute makes people annoyed with both sides,” he said. “It is vexing to us that we are still in this dispute.”
“I don’t want patients to suffer,” he added. “I accept that the strikes cause disruption… of course that’s upsetting for them. I completely get that. And I’m sorry that it’s happening.”
