The dispute between junior doctors and the government could be solved with the help of an independent organisation, according to a body representing senior doctors and surgeons.
The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said prolonged industrial action – including the four-day strike last week – was having a “serious impact” on medical services.
The British Medical Association, the union representing many of the junior doctors, has already asked conciliation service Acas to get involved in negotiations, but both sides would need to agree to independent conciliation. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has so far said it would not involve a third party.
The BMA argues that junior doctors have seen a 26% erosion in real-terms pay over the past 15 years, and is calling for a 35% pay rise, which the government has described as “unreasonable”.
Junior doctors’ strike
Junior doctors begin four-day strike
Junior doctors’ union asks for Acas involvement in pay dispute
The Academy said it was vital for a service such as Acas to get involved because patients were suffering as a result of the dispute.
Professor Dame Helen Stokes Lampard, chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, told the BBC Today programme: “Patients are suffering… the doctors are suffering too. It needs to be brought to a conclusion.
“Before you can even start to have negotiations you have to have preliminary talks,” she added, and these could be supported by a third party.
The BMA believes that working with Acas would give the most realistic chance of ending the strikes, and Acas chief Susan Clews has said the organisation is “well prepared and ready to help”.
Prof Philip Banfield, chairman of the BMA council, has said the union’s 35% demand is not immutable. He told the BBC: “People are tied up on this 35% figure. There is no number that is set in stone here, it is the principle of restoring pay that has been lost in its value.
“In order to discuss what that means and how that is achieved, it needs people to sit around the table. This government does not want to sit around the table. It does not want to have any kind of independent arbitration of this because it’s worried that it might cost it money.”
Government figures showed that almost 200,000 hospital appointments had to be cancelled due to the strikes last week. The Royal College of Nursing has also voted in favour of further strike action over the first bank holiday in May.
A spokesperson for the DHSC said: “The Health and Social Care secretary has been clear his door is open and he remains willing to engage constructively but a 35% pay rise, which would involve some junior doctors receiving £20,000, is unreasonable.
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“Strike action also needs to be paused for formal talks to begin.”
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