Senior doctors on £134k-a-year set to pause crippling NHS strikes for government talks in breakthrough
NHS consultants will pause their crippling strikes after ministers agreed to break the deadlock and negotiate.
Senior doctors in the British Medical Association are set to pause walkouts in their drive for a pay rise and reform of their annual salary review.
The Department of Health has agreed to meet with the BMA after the consultants gave them a four-week window in October to avoid more strikes.
The move will calm fears of an NHS meltdown this winter, with junior doctors’ strikes still raging.
A Department of Health spokesperson said: “We have agreed to meet the BMA Consultants Committee following their commitment to pause strike action, in the hope we will find a resolution and end the dispute.
“We have been clear that headline pay will not be on the table.
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“Doctors have already received a fair and reasonable pay rise.”
Consultants, who are generally the top doctors in the hospital and earn an estimated £134,000 per year on average, have been on strike four times this year.
Two of them coincided with junior doctors’ walkouts, bringing clinics grinding to a halt.
Overall, NHS strikes have this year led to more than a million appointment cancellations and around a month of lost labour.
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A BMA spokesperson said: “Following the consultants committee letter indicating they would pause strike dates and requesting the Government enter negotiations, the committee has now received an invitation to talks with the Department for Health and Social Care.
“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.”