From what I can see, the fact that individual doctors can see their pay go up as they progress and gain experience isn’t in dispute.
The fact that individual doctors can get paid for doing extended or additional hours isn’t in dispute.
The issue is that freezing pay and awarding sequential sub-inflationary pay rises has effectively cut pay for individual roles.
Is someone one year out of medial school in 2023 worth a third less than someone one year out of medial school in 2008?
Ditto the registrar. Ditto the consultant. Ditto many others in the public sector.
That’s the point of dispute here.
And pay review bodies are appointed by the government and work within whatever constraints the treasury has already placed on the budget - and that have also been ignored in the past. Hiding behind the pay review bodies isn’t going to work.
The sooner they come up with a sensible pay package - multiyear deal is going to be needed - the better.
