Consultants and SAS (specialist, associate specialist, and speciality) doctors will strike next week as part of a dispute over pay, which unions say has been cut by almost a third in real terms since 2008/9.

In a ballot which ended in March, 70 per cent of consultants and 58 per cent SAS doctors eligible to vote in Wales had responded to a call to take part in industrial action which will now take place from Tuesday, 16 April.

Unions said that over the last 15 years, “consultants and SAS doctors in Wales have experienced a pay cut of almost a third since 2008/9” and “received another sub-inflationary pay offer from the Welsh Government for 2023/24 which “the worst offer in the UK.”

Consultant and SAS doctors make up 54 per cent of the hospital-based medical workforce combined, with 3,137 Consultants and 1,088 SAS doctors working in hospitals across Wales.

The BMA union is calling on the Welsh Government to provide sufficient funding to enable discussions around an uplift in senior doctor pay that will retain existing doctors and ensure recruitment of more.

The strike action will take place from 7am, Tuesday 16 April to 7am, Thursday 18 April.