RESIDENT doctors in England have started receiving ballots for renewed industrial action following criticism of the government’s recent pay offer.

Ministers announced last week that most doctors would receive a 4 per cent pay rise following the latest review of public-sector pay, with resident doctors to receive an extra £750 on top of the uplift.

The British Medical Association (BMA), the union representing doctors, said the pay rise does not go far enough in reversing historical pay freezes.

Resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, in England are starting to receive ballots for industrial action from today, the BMA said.

The ballot closes on July 7, and if doctors vote for action then a mandate would last between July and January next year.

Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, co-chairs of the resident doctors committee, urged doctors to vote for strike action, but said the door remains open for the government to come through with a solution.

In a joint statement, they said: “Last week the government finally told us what it would do to restore the pay of doctors: almost nothing.

“Doctors have seen their pay decline by 23 per cent in real terms since 2008.

"No doctor today is worth less than they were then, but at the rate the government is offering it would be over a decade before we once again reached that level of pay.

“As ballots once again fall through doctors’ letterboxes, we are simply saying: the NHS does not have that time.

”Waiting lists are too high, too many people can’t see their GP, too many patients are being treated in corridors.

“Doctors need to be kept in the country and in their career not in 10 or 20 years’ time, but now.”

Professor Philip Banfield, the BMA’s chairman of council, warned shortly after the government’s pay announcement that the union was already considering strike action.

“Doctors’ pay is still around a quarter less than it was in real terms 16 years ago and today’s ‘award’ delays pay restoration even more, without a government plan or reassurance to correct this erosion of what a doctor is worth,” he said.