Correspondence

Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration remit letter: 2022 to 2023

Published 30 November 2021

Applies to England

Mr Christopher Pilgrim
Chair Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration
Office of Manpower Economics
Level 3, Windsor House
50 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0TL

Dear Mr Pilgrim,

I should firstly like to offer my thanks for the Review Body for Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration’s (DDRB) work over the past year on the 2021 report and for the patience you and your members showed during the previous round. The government appreciates the independent, expert advice and valuable contribution that the DDRB makes.

I write to you now to formally commence the 2022 to 2023 pay round.

As the NHS budget has already been set until 2024 to 2025, it is vital that planned workforce growth is affordable and within the budgets set, particularly as there is a direct relationship between pay and staff numbers.

The government must balance the need to ensure fair pay for public sector workers while protecting funding for frontline services and ensuring affordability for taxpayers. We must ensure that the affordability of a pay award is taken into consideration to ensure that the NHS is able to recruit, retain and motivate its medical and dental workforce, as well as deliver on other key priorities, including ensuring the NHS has 50,000 more nurses by 2025 and tackling elective recovery.

The evidence that my department and NHS England and Improvement will provide in the coming months, will support you in your consideration of all these factors.

We invite you to make recommendations on an annual pay award for consultants.

As you are aware, in 2019 we reached a multi-year agreement for doctors and dentists in training so the government is not asking the DDRB to make a pay recommendation for this group. We would, however, welcome your comments and observations on the evidence you receive from the Department of Health and Social Care and other parties, relating to doctors and dentists in training.

For Specialty Doctors and Associate Specialists (SAS), you will be aware of the multi-year pay and contract reform deal agreed with the British Medical Association (BMA) in 2020. As SAS doctors were given the choice to transfer over to the new contract, we invite you to make recommendations on an annual pay award for those doctors who chose not to transfer.

Independent contractor General Medical Practitioners also remain subject to a 5-year pay agreement between NHS England and Improvement and the BMA and, therefore, the government is not seeking recommendations for this group. We do, however, invite you to make recommendations on uplifts to the maximum and minimum of the salaried General Medical Practitioner pay scales. As ever, recommendations will need to be informed by affordability and the fixed contract resources available to practices under the 5-year GP contract.

We also invite you to make recommendations on the pay element of remuneration for dentists employed by, or providing services to, the NHS. As with doctors in training, dentists in training are covered by the multi-year pay and contract reform agreement and therefore the government is not asking for a recommendation for this group. As always, while your remit covers the whole of the United Kingdom, it is for each administration to make its own decisions on its approach to this year’s pay round and to communicate this to you directly.

We would welcome your reports in May 2022, subject to ongoing conversations with the Office of Manpower Economics.

I would like to thank you again for yours’ and the Review Body’s invaluable contribution to the pay round and look forward to receiving your 2022 report in due course.

Yours ever,

Sajid Javid

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care