BMA seeks deal with Government to tackle doctor unemployment as crisis looms

The BMA is seeking a deal with Government to fix the doctor unemployment crisis, as a survey shows the scale of ‘employment limbo’ looming this summer.

A third (34 per cent) of doctors responding to the poll of 4,401 doctors said they have no substantive employment or regular locum work from August 2025. This rose to more than half (52 per cent) among 1,053 FY2 (foundation year two) doctors, who are about to complete their foundation training.

Competition for specialty training places, the traditional pathway for doctors to follow when they complete their foundation training, has skyrocketed in recent years. This year, there were more than 30,000 doctors applying for just 10,000 specialty training places.

The Government recently promised, as part of its 10-year health plan, to create 1,000 new specialty training posts over the next three years, but with the situation currently at ‘crisis point’, the BMA says this falls well short of what is needed.

The BMA is therefore launching an additional linked dispute with the Government and seeks to make a deal that would solve the looming unemployment crisis, alongside its existing calls to restore eroded pay that is 21 per cent down in real terms against 2008 levels.

Five days of strike action are currently under way.

The BMA resident doctors committee is now headed for a ballot of new FY1 doctors – likely to be among the most affected by the bottlenecks issue – to commit formally to fighting for pay and training.

RDC co-chairs Ross Nieuwoudt and Melissa Ryan (pictured above) said: ‘Throughout this dispute, ballot and industrial action, one thing we have heard from our colleagues is the genuine fear and real worry about being able to secure a job in the future. Today’s survey results show these fears realised.

‘It’s absurd that in a country where the Government says bringing down NHS waiting lists is one of its top priorities, not only is it not prepared to restore doctors’ pay, but it also won’t provide jobs for doctors ready, willing and capable to progress in their careers.

‘With more than six million patients on waiting lists in England, it’s maddening that a third of resident doctors say they cannot get a job. Across the NHS, this means potentially thousands of UK doctors are left in employment limbo when patients desperately need their care.

‘Commitments from the Government to address this don’t go far enough or are too vague to convince us that they understand the gravity of the situation, so we’re making clear that, alongside pay, we are entering a dispute and demanding action so that no UK-trained, capable, doctor is left underemployed in the NHS.’