BMA doctors take to picket lines over pay - but minister says less than 25% voted to strike
Doctors have taken to picket lines in Belfast, Londonderry and Craigavon today, claiming that their pay has suffered an almost 20% erosion in real terms since 2008.
However Health Minister Mike Nesbitt said that 90% of Health and Social Care Services continued as normal – and that less than 25% of doctors voted for the action.
Resident doctors, previously known as junior doctors, staged the 24-hour walk out from 7am today, Monday, to 7am tommorrow. Consultants and specialist doctors provided full cover for residents during the strike.
The strike follows a 24-hour period of industrial action by Consultants and Specialist and Associate Specialist (SAS) doctors from Thursday into Friday last week. Emergency or Christmas Day cover was provided for their patients during this strike.
The BMA argues that their pay has suffered a 19% erosion against inflation since 2008, when they say government austerity began.
They have already rejected a 3.5% pay offer and while it is understood they are not asking for a 20% rise at this time, they are pressing for what they see as a "credible" offer.
However Health minister Mike Nesbitt has said the action could affect recent progress on reducing waiting lists.
He is committed to implementing this year’s pay award of 3.5% recommended by the independent Doctors’ and Dentists’ Pay Review Body (DDRB) but says he is currently unable to do so in the absence of an agreed budget for his department.
The minister said it is important to stress that 90% of services continued as normal despite the strike.
“This action is being taken on the mandate of less than a quarter of the medical workforce in Northern Ireland," he said in a statement issued repeatedly by his department over the past week.
"Overall, only 24.8% of doctors locally have voted to take this action. I am very grateful to those who recognise the impacts strike action will have on our population, and for their commitment to provide continuity of service.”
The DDRB recommendation of a 3.5% pay rise for 2026/27 is higher than that for other healthcare professionals, he said.
"It comes on top of an average cumulative pay uplifts over the last three years of 30% for resident doctors, 25% for Specialty, Associate Specialist, and Specialist doctors (SAS doctors) and 24% for consultants."
To go beyond a 3.5% pay rise, he said, would have "significant repercussions" for nurses, teachers, police officers and the entire public sector workforce.
Dr David Farren, chairman of the BMA's Northern Ireland consultants committee, argued his case at the picket line at the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) in Belfast.
Other pickets took place at Craigavon Area Hospital and Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry.
He said everyone is "furious at the situation".
"Our pay since 2008 has decreased by over 20%, and that's why everybody is out today," he told the BBC.
The DDRB award of 3.5% does not restore them back to 2008 levels, he said.
"We did a survey recently of penultimate and final year medical students, over 54% of our medical students here in Northern Ireland have told us that they are not planning to work here in Northern Ireland," he added.
He said he believed that if things did not change, "the NHS in Northern Ireland ceases to exist".