Junior doctors protest at omission from pay award
BMJ 2022; 378 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o1873 (Published 27 July 2022) Cite this as: BMJ 2022;378:o1873
Richard H Smith
Hundreds of doctors descended on the offices of the Department of Health and Social Care for England, a short walk from the houses of parliament in London, on the evening of Monday 25 July to chant, raise banners, and call for strike action over pay.
The crowd, comprising mainly junior doctors and medical students, marched through the streets and congregated outside Downing Street, taking up much of the road and disrupting traffic. With some passing cars beeping their horns in support, the biggest cheers from the crowd were reserved for supportive ambulance and bus drivers.
On the march, doctors told The BMJ that they felt undervalued and burnt out. Lena Hassan, an internal medicine trainee who had travelled from Dartford, Kent, said, “It’s getting ridiculous. I’m struggling to pay rent, I’m struggling to live a normal life,” she said. “I think that we are owed a pay rise, and this is the only way we are going to win it.”
The protest came after junior doctors were excluded from the 4.5% pay rise announced by the government for eligible doctors, because juniors are covered by a multiyear deal agreed in 2019.12 The BMA has calculated that pay awards for junior doctors in England between 2008-09 and 2021-22 have delivered a real terms pay cut of 26.1%.3 The BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee has said it will now go ahead with balloting for possible industrial action.
Speaking outside Downing Street, junior doctor Emma Runswick, deputy chair of BMA council, told the crowd, “You have come out today to tell this government that you are worth so much more. But this demonstration does not solve the problem we have. It is going to be solved in conversations with our colleagues, it’s going to be solved in organising, it’s going to be solved in voting in the strike ballot, it’s going to be solved in striking.”