14 May 2008
We received a petition asking:
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to overturn the 2006 amendments to the medical act that effectively took away the rights of FY1 doctors to free accommodation, or compensate FY1 doctors for their loss."
Details of Petition:
"The 2006 amendments took away the need of junior doctors to be resident in hospital. The free accommodation this gave was a perk of the job. This with the reduction in salary faced by FY1 doctors, will constitute a near a 40% reduction in take home salary."
Read the Government’s response
The pay of junior doctors falls under the remit of the Doctors’ and Dentists’ Pay Review Body (DDRB). The DDRB is independent and makes recommendations to the Prime Minister, Secretary of State for Health, and the First Ministers for Scotland and Wales on the remuneration of doctors and dentists playing any part in the NHS.
For 2008/09, the DDRB recommended an increase of 2.2 per cent. The Government has accepted this recommendation in full. The Government believes the pay uplifts are fair, reflecting the Government’s desire to control inflation, thereby protecting NHS jobs and services.
The position regarding charges for accommodation relates to the European Working Time Directive, which means that doctors in foundation year one (FY1) can no longer be included in ‘on call’ rotas.
As a result, there is no longer a statutory requirement for doctors in FY1 to be living at or near their workplace and many have taken advantage of this, choosing to live away from hospital. Legislation has been changed for good reason, and it is for local Trusts to make the final decision on whether to continue offers of free accommodation.
The Department of Health appreciates that some junior doctors may be dissatisfied. However, the wider point is that it is a side-effect of a long struggle to reduce the extreme working hours that many UK junior doctors used to experience. While junior doctors still work extremely hard, the kinds of exhausting 48- or 72-hour shifts that were common 20 years ago should now be a thing of the past.
In preparing its recommendations for 2008/09 pay, the DDRB took evidence on this issue from the British Medical Association, NHS Employers and the Health Departments. In its report, published in April, the DDRB commented:
7.20 Our view on free accommodation for junior doctors is that its provision was linked to the statutory requirement under the Medical Act for such doctors to be contractually resident. Changes to the working patterns of junior doctors and new rotas making it unnecessary for them to be ‘on call’ have allowed the Government to amend the Medical Act so as to remove the residency requirement. It is therefore the case that free accommodation for junior doctors has not been a necessity for some time and we consider it entirely appropriate that junior doctors are treated in exactly the same way as other NHS staff.
7.21 The BMA believed that the removal of free accommodation was the removal of a benefit in kind. As with our comments on unavoidable costs above, while we acknowledge that the removal of free accommodation may in the short term increase costs for some junior doctors, the potential for future earnings has been greatly enhanced by recent contractual changes. We do not intend to revisit this issue in future years.
A copy of the full report can be found at www.ome.uk.com (new window)
The Junior Doctors Terms and Conditions of Service continue to provide that if a doctor is contractually required to live in hospital accommodation, that is, if this forms part of the contract between the employing Trust and the doctor, then no charges should be made for the accommodation provided.