Birmingham doctors strike cost NHS Trust £6m in extra staff costs
Strike action at hospitals in Birmingham and Solihull resulted in extra staff costs of around £6 million.
Figures presented to the University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) NHS Foundation Trust board showed a continued challenging financial picture for services.
Julian Miller, UHB chief financial officer, said that, as of December (Month 9), the trust had an overall year-to-date deficit of £36.8 million – more than £25 million than had been planned at the start of the financial year.
He said the main reason for this deficit were as a result of staff costs, not least a total of around £6.2 million on bank staff during industrial action taken by resident doctors.
A round of strikes were called by the British Medical Association as a result of a pay dispute in 2025, which affected hospitals in Birmingham and Solihull.
Doctors had been awarded a 5.4 per cent increase by the Government but the BMA called for 29.2 per cent to address historical pay freezes.
The latest round of action took place for five days between December 17 and December 22 and while bosses were confident measures were in place to deliver most services, they have been left to foot the bill.
At a meeting on January 29, Mr Miller told the Trust board: “We recorded a £0.2million surplus in Month 9 and that takes the year to date actual deficit of £36.8million which is £25.6million adverse to year to date the plan.
“The variance is driven predominantly by pay overspends. The two main components of that, firstly substantive staffing which is £17.5million adverse to plan. It’s about a variance of 1.7 per cent in terms of our capital spend.
“Whilst that is a concern it is closer to plan than it was last year which is something to note.
“The other component of the pay overspend is around bank (staffing) costs which are £19.9m adverse to plan and that is driven primarily by industrial action where we’ve got costs of around £6.2 million.”
He added there had also been a failure to reduce overall bank spend at a pace which had been anticipated.
There was better news in terms of agency staff spend which is at £13.3 million for the year to date – £1.3million favourable to what they had planned to be at this stage.
