The Government should agree a staggered pay increase with junior doctors - The Yorkshire Post says

The dispute between junior doctors and the Government over pay should never have been allowed to reach the stage where doctors are taking to the picket line. But when you examine the situation they face, it becomes clear that they have been left with little choice.

One junior doctor, who is eight years into her medical career, talked on the Leeds General Infirmary picket line about how she was struggling to make ends meet. She also pointed to the extra costs that go with being a doctor.

“I don’t know if people realise what we have to pay just to try and stay in the profession,” she said. “I’ve just paid £1,000 for an exam in September, and it’s not something we get back from our employer.”

While Chris Morris, a British Medical Association (BMA) deputy chairman for Yorkshire, said junior doctors “feel like we have been forced into this position” after ministers “did not approach (pay negotiations) in good faith”.

Patients' lives are being disrupted as a result of this dispute. And if the Government believes that their ire should be directed at junior doctors then it is mistaken. Junior doctors are not the villains of this dispute.

And while the Government’s reticence to award a 35 per cent pay rise, which junior doctors are calling for to restore the value of their pay to 2008-09 levels, it needs to work constructively with the BMA.

The BMA has extended an olive branch to the Government - Emma Runswick, BMA deputy council chairman, has suggested staggering the pay increase rather than implementing it immediately could be a way to resolve the dispute. The Government should seek to grab this olive branch.