FURTHER pay erosion would be “an absolute kick in the teeth” for junior doctors in Wales, their union said today as they began a three-day strike.

Thousands of medics walked out after the British Medical Association (BMA) rejected a 5 per cent pay offer from the Welsh government.

Junior doctors being paid as little as £13.65 an hour — 81 per cent of the national average salary —  told how they feel undervalued by the NHS today.

The BMA said that its members had been forced to take the difficult decision to strike after seeing their pay drop by almost a third over the past 15 years.

A whopping 98 per cent of its junior doctor members who took part in last month’s ballot voted to strike for pay restoration. 

Dr Peter Fahey, co-chairman of BMA Wales’s junior doctors committee, said pay was the “primary measure of how your employer values you as an employee. So having pay as low as it is, it means doctors don’t feel valued,” he said.

“Further pay erosion this year is just the absolute kick in the teeth for doctors.”

Deputy chair of the Welsh junior doctors’ committee Dr Emily Sams told the Morning Star that the BMA is asking for a “completely fair and reasonable” pay increase from £13.65 to £19 an hour for a junior doctor in their first year of qualifying.

She said: “It doesn't reflect the hard work and dedication they put into the job and have put into to get to that point after five years of medical school.

"If this pay erosion continues it would be completely insulting to a workforce that has given a lot over the last few years.

"The Welsh government has not even begun to address the pay over the last 15 years.”

Dr Sams, 33, who works in general surgery in Newport, added that she was very tempted to apply for speciality training in England or Scotland for better pay — peers who graduated alongside her in 2017 now enjoy a much better standard of living after moving into other sectors or practising medicine overseas.

The BMA has planned a mass demonstration outside the Senedd today.

Welsh Health Minister Eluned Morgan said that pay restoration for junior doctors in Wales was impossible without a significant increase in funding from Westminster.