Funding doctors’ pay claim ‘could cost £1.3bn’

Consultants are also balloting on action for a similar multi-year pay increase. The two pay demands together would add more than £3.7bn to NHS England’s annual budget.

According to the Nuffield Trust, a one percentage point increase in resident doctors’ earnings would cost £51m, plus employers’ national insurance and pension contributions. The BMA’s demand for 26% would cost at least £1.3bn. A similar rise for consultants would cost £2.4bn.

The Department of Health said it “simply can’t go further on pay this year” after offering a 4% rise to doctors. The BMA declined to comment. Nursing unions are also considering industrial action after being offered a 3.6% pay rise.

The strike appears to have had less impact than those in 2023 and 2024. There are no official turnout figures yet for this round of strikes, but Professor Meghana Pandit, NHS England’s co-national medical director, said local trusts had maintained services with “minimal disruption”.

NHS England has said hospitals are aiming to reschedule appointments cancelled due to strikes within two weeks, but warned of knock-on impacts for other patients. Rory Deighton, acute and community care director at the NHS Confederation, said that NHS trusts and systems were on standby to bring in temporary staff and reschedule appointments if there were spikes in demand during the strike.

“Health leaders will do everything they can to maintain safety over the strike period,” he said. “Their number one priority is patient care and they will be trying to keep as much activity going as possible.”

Analysis of previous strikes by the King’s Fund found that mortality rates for people admitted to hospital were not significantly different on strike days, partly because unions agreed derogations to allow some staff to work on critical cases.

But cancelled or postponed appointments did have an impact on the physical and mental health of patients, and could affect the prime minister’s pledge to hit the target of 92% of routine appointments within 18 weeks.

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