Junior doctors are “not exceptional in having inflation pressures” on their wages and should take the government’s proposed pay rise “seriously”, a minister has said.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak confirmed on Thursday that he would be accepting recommendations from public sector pay review bodies to increase wages across the board – albeit without giving departments extra funding to pay for it.

As a result, an offer of a 6% rise, plus a one-off payment of £1,250, was given to junior doctors.

Politics live: Junior doctors’ strike continues for second day

But the British Medical Association (BMA) – whose members are currently on strike and are calling for a full 35% pay restoration to bring salaries back to 2008 levels – said the new figure “serves only to increase the losses faced by doctors after more than a decade’s worth of sub-inflation pay awards”.

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Asked about the BMA’s reaction by Sky News, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said junior doctors were “not unusual” in the pressures they were facing as “every single person actually across the world, not even just across this country, has seen the impacts of inflation”.

She added: “So [junior doctors] are not exceptional in having, you know, inflation pressures. We all have inflationary pressures. Everybody does.”

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