Doctors’ pay review body must be made “truly independent,” says BMA

The NHS staffing crisis cannot be resolved without wholesale reform of the doctors’ and dentists’ pay review body, the BMA has said.

In a report published on 18 January the BMA detailed a list of instances of what it described as the government’s “meddling and interference” in the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB) that had undermined the body’s independence.1

The government has said repeatedly that its hands are tied by the pay review process when it comes to deciding doctors’ pay awards. But the BMA argued that the government had interfered with the pay review process for over a …