Doctors are being polled over whether to take further action, as a BMA campaign to increase the value of the London living allowance ramps up.

The association is leading calls for an unfreezing of the London weighting element of doctors’ pay, warning that the cost-of-living crisis is making it increasingly difficult for medical staff to live and work in the capital.

An indicative ballot of all London-based doctors got under way this week, with doctors being asked whether they are prepared to take further action in the event weighting is not increased.

London Weighting is an additional payment to a worker's salary to address the added expense of working in London.

While the maximum London weighting payment for non-doctor, dentist or senior manager NHS staff has increased by 59 per cent since 2005, and now stands at an extra £8,746 per year, weighting payments for medical staff have remained unchanged for more than 20 years.

The failure to increase the amount of weighting paid to medical staff comes despite the fact that the cost of living in London has soared in recent years, with house prices and rent in the capital having increased respectively by 112 per cent and 128 per cent since 2005.

The maximum amount payable to a doctor working in inner London comes to £2,162 a year. For doctors on the fringes of greater London, the weighting payment amounts to just an additional £149 annually.

The financial pressures of living and working in the capital are often most acutely felt among those doctors at the beginning of their medical careers.

Speaking to the BMA, one foundation year 1 doctor living in north London and in receipt of the outer London weighting payment, said they were only able to work in the capital owing to living with family.

They said: ‘Living and working in London is incredibly expensive and the cost of living is only becoming more unaffordable. I live with my family, which I’m lucky to be able to do, but I simply can’t afford to move out because rents are so high.

‘Many doctors I work with are also living at home or having to go into their overdrafts just to afford the deposits needed to rent a flat. It’s not just housing either. The cost of food shopping, commuting to work and even socialising is astronomical, making it increasingly difficult to afford to live and work in the capital.’

They added: ‘Increasing the London weighting would make a real difference, helping me to save towards moving out while taking some of the financial pressure off the day-to-day cost of living and working in London.’

One of those leading the BMA’s campaign is BMA resident doctors committee chair and BMA London regional council honorary secretary Callum Parr.

Dr Parr, who works in north-west London, said the BMA’s call was for parity between NHS staff in the amount of weighting they received, adding that the decision to freeze allowances for doctors had failed to reflect economic reality.

He said: ‘Doctors and their NHS colleagues can work in the same hospital, travel on the same Tube and face the same London rents, yet receive very different support towards those costs.

‘The NHS already recognises that working in London costs more. What we are asking is why doctors’ payments have been left frozen since 2005 while those for our colleagues have increased.

‘For doctors starting their careers, the cost of renting and travelling to work in London puts real pressure on their finances. An allowance that has stood still for more than two decades is increasingly disconnected from the costs it was designed to recognise.’

He added: ‘We are asking members whether they are prepared to take further action to secure a fair payment. Doctors deserve the same recognition of London’s additional costs as their NHS colleagues.’

The ballot of London-based doctors is set to run until 30 November.

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