{"id":264626,"date":"2025-07-14T16:08:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T16:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/264626\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T16:08:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T16:08:11","slug":"bbc-verify-live-investigating-gaza-water-queue-strike-and-resident-doctors-claims-about-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/264626\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC Verify Live: Investigating Gaza water queue strike, and resident doctors’ claims about pay"},"content":{"rendered":"

How different measures of inflation affect doctors\u2019 pay claimpublished at 15:35 British Summer Time<\/p>\n

15:35 BST<\/p>\n

\"\"Robert Cuffe<\/strong>
BBC Verify head of statistics<\/p>\n

\"TwoImage source, Getty Images<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been looking into a row over how much resident doctors\u2019 (who used to be called junior doctors) pay has fallen in real terms – and it centres on what measure of inflation is used.<\/p>\n

Inflation is the increase in the price of something over time. The Retail Prices Index and Consumer Prices Index are two commonly used measures.<\/p>\n

Each index typically produces very different results (RPI is usually higher) because they include different things.<\/p>\n

The doctors\u2019 union the BMA argues that resident doctors\u2019 pay has fallen 20% since 2008, once adjusted for RPI inflation.<\/p>\n

However this falls to 5% if CPI inflation is used (the government\u2019s preferred measure), according to analysis from the Nuffield Trust, external<\/a> – a health think tank. <\/p>\n

Speaking to BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme, the BMA\u2019s Emma Runswick defended using RPI to support its pay claim.She said RPI was \u201cthe measure of inflation the government uses for our debt\u2026 for train fares\u2026 for car taxes\u201d.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s correct to say the government still uses RPI for things like annual train fare increases – although it is due to be phased out by 2030.<\/p>\n

Other things, however, like increases to state pensions and benefits are usually based on CPI and the body which makes recommendations to the government on doctors\u2019 pay says it uses CPI as its \u201cbenchmark\u201d, external<\/a> when looking at how pay has changed over time. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How different measures of inflation affect doctors\u2019 pay claimpublished at 15:35 British Summer Time 15:35 BST Robert CuffeBBC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-264626","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114852456349141823","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}