Government and BMA to hold talks over consultant pay dispute

The Government has agreed to meet with the BMA Consultants Committee in the hope to find a resolution to the current pay dispute.

The committee received an invitation to talk with the Department for Health and Social Care following a letter from the BMA requesting the resumption of negotiation and indicating they would pause consultant strikes.

These will be the first formal talks the committee has had with the Government since May.

Dr Vishal Sharma, chair of the BMA Consultants Committee, said: ‘The BMA Consultants Committee has been clear that reform of the broken pay review process is essential to resolving this dispute and that the reformed pay review body is to make truly independent recommendations on pay in order to correct for the losses that consultants have experienced that have resulted in the current workforce crisis.

‘We will be expecting to discuss and explore other solutions in the forthcoming talks.

‘It is good to see the Government is willing to come to the table and it is vital that they commit to serious negotiations with a view to bringing this avoidable dispute to a conclusion.’

We recently wrote to Government indicating that we would delay further strike dates to allow them to commit to talks and present us with a credible offer that we could put to our members. We have now received a reply from Government indicating they are prepared to enter talks. — BMA Consultants (@BMA_Consultants) October 18, 2023

After months of walkouts, consultants and junior doctors had organised a joint strike for three full days at the beginning of this month, with ‘Christmas Day’-level cover.

And NHS England bosses had urged the Government to urgently resume talks with doctors ahead of winter.

NHS England chair Richard Meddings gave the stark warning that winter pressures will be ‘impossible to manage’ if also impacted by strikes, while chief executive Amanda Pritchard noted talks between the Government and doctors cannot resume ‘soon enough’.

In a formal warning letter, NHS England told the BMA that ‘cumulative’ impact of doctor strikes were causing ‘significant disruption and risk to patients’.

Earlier this month, health secretary Steve Barclay criticised the BMA in his speech to the Tory party conference, including over resistance to GP patient records access via the NHS app.