8 July 2026
Resident doctors at the beginning of their long action to restore pay levels. Whipps Cross, London, March 2023. Consultants are preparing to follow suit. Photo Workers.
NHS consultants in England have voted for strike action over pay and conditions. The vote comes shortly after resident doctors settled their own dispute after three years of action.
The British Medical Association, their trade union, rejected the government-endorsed Doctors and Dentists Pay Review Body figure of a 3.5 per cent increase for 2026-27.
Feelings are running high among consultants – 76 per cent voted in favour of strikes in the ballot, on a 52 per cent turnout.
Demand
Their demand is for a pay deal over several years that makes up for the long term fall in consultants’ salaries. The union estimates this at around 25 per cent in real terms since 2008-09.
‘…attempting to address deskilling and dilution…’
The consultants claim goes further, attempting to address deskilling and dilution of their role as the most skilled workers in the NHS.
They want a reduction in the length of clinical sessions, improved payment for out of hours work, and guarantees on pensions, a major concern for consultants nearing the end of their careers.
Professionalism
The most important element of the claim is about Supporting Activities; after clinical work these are the core of medical professionalism. These activities include the vital task of educating and training less experienced doctors.
Time allocated to Supporting Activities also covers: clinical governance; investigating incidents; responding to the ever-growing number of patient complaints, participating in appraisal and revalidation, and the plethora of statutory and mandatory training the NHS requires of its staff.
Inadequate
Consultants are demanding that job plans guarantee three SPAs a week. Currently 2.5 sessions are considered typical, but this level has been under attack for years. And in any case it is inadequate for the modern NHS.
Specialty, Associate Specialist and Specialist doctors were also balloted. Although 90 per cent voted to strike, the 43 per cent turnout failed to meet the threshold imposed under the 2016 Trade Union Act.
Beyond reform
Consultants see promised reforms to their Review Body as cosmetic. The fiction that the various pay review bodies’ are independent is well-understood throughout the NHS workforce. As instruments of Treasury policy, they are beyond reform.
NHS workers can rely on no one but themselves for improvements in pay and conditions. That’s been the lesson of the long-drawn out fight by resident doctors.