Junior doctors accept 22% pay rise ending more than a year of strikes

The BMA said 66% of their members voted to accept the deal, as ITV News Correspondent Rebecca Barry reports

Junior doctors have voted to accept a government pay deal worth 22.3% on average over two years, the British Medical Association has said.

The BMA said 66% of their members voted to accept the deal, they also said the government had agreed separately to swap the term 'junior doctor' for 'resident doctor' to better reflect their expertise.

The deal will see junior doctors’ pay rise by between 3.71% and 5.05% – averaging 4.05% – on top of their existing pay award for 2023/24. This will be backdated to April 2023.

The health secretary said he was pleased the doctors had accepted the offer

Each part of the pay scale will also be uplifted by 6%, plus £1,000, as recommended by the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB), with an effective date of April 1 2024.

Both rises mean a doctor starting foundation training in the NHS will see a base pay increase to £36,600, up from about £32,400.

A full-time doctor entering specialty training will have a basic pay rise to £49,900 from about £43,900.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he is “pleased” the BMA has accepted the government’s pay deal.

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He said: “We inherited a broken NHS, the most devastating dispute in the health service’s history, and negotiations hadn’t taken place with the previous ministers since March."

Reaching the deal with the BMA was one of the first things the health secretary did after Labour won the election.

The BMA junior doctors committee co-chairs, Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, said: “It should never have taken so long to get here, but we have shown what can be accomplished with our determination and with a government willing to simply sit down and talk realistically about a path to pay restoration. One strike was one strike too many."

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