Junior doctors get different pay rises

19 March 2010

JUNIOR doctors in Scotland are to receive a bigger pay rise than those in England.

Scottish health secretary Nicola Sturgeon MSP has announced that foundation year doctors will get a 1.5 per cent boost from April. That compares to an increase of just one per cent for trainees in England.

Under the deal, hospital consultants’ pay will be frozen while GPs are facing an effective pay cut after the Government refused to fund a gross increase of 1.4 per cent. GPs are now expected to make efficiency savings to fund inflation-related costs.

The Scottish Government voted to accept the 1.5 per cent rise recommended by the Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration Body (DDRB) in relation to junior doctors’ pay, but the Department for Health in England rejected them.

They also recommended that GPs, dentists and hospital consultants should have their pay frozen and that all other pay grades – apart from FYs – should go up one per cent.

Ms Sturgeon said: “In the current financial circumstances I think this is a broadly fair and affordable award which recognises the important and valuable work done by doctors and dentists in the NHS in Scotland.”

Brian Keighley, the chairman of the BMA in Scotland, said: “[Ms Sturgeon] has gone some way towards recognising the financial pressures placed on junior doctors in their first years of postgraduate training.”

The BMA expressed its disappointment at the Department of Health in England’s decision to reject the DDRB’s recommendations.

BMA council chairman Hamish Meldrum said: “We are well aware of the financial climate in which this decision is being made, but the independent pay review body took these factors into account in coming to its recommendations.

“We are particularly disappointed that the government, in choosing to interfere with the pay review body’s recommendations, has not fully taken into account the financial pressures on junior doctors in their first years of postgraduate training — who have average debts of £22,000.”

He added: “The government has scaled back the uplift that was essential to counter increases in GPs’ expenses, which has resulted in another pay cut for family doctors.”