DOCTORS’ leaders demanded reform of the profession’s pay review body today, branding its supposed independence a “sham.”

The British Medical Association (BMA) slammed a “litany of instances of meddling and interference” by Tory ministers, who appoint members to the review body on the remuneration of doctors and dentists and set its remit.

The association warned that the staffing crisis crippling the NHS cannot be resolved without “wholesale reform” of the pay review system, which health unions withdrew from earlier this month following yet another real-terms pay cut for NHS workers in 2022-23.

BMA consultants committee chairman Dr Vishal Sharma accused Downing Street of “interference with every step of the pay review process for over a decade.

“Ministers cannot continue to argue that the [body] is independent while doctors’ pay falls off a cliff and we have thousands of medical vacancies.

“If the pay review process is to have any hope in restoring the confidence of doctors and remedying the dire staffing shortages across the NHS, then it must be urgently reformed in line with its founding principles.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson claimed it is “misleading to suggest the government interferes with the operation or independence of pay review bodies.

“They are independent advisory bodies who carefully consider evidence submitted to them from a range of stakeholders, including government, NHS system partners and trade unions.”

Whitehall’s remit letter for 2023-24’s pay deal, which highlighted the government’s 2 per cent inflation target, “referenced the many factors the body must consider and was not an attempt to constrain recommendations,” the spokesperson argued.