MANY doctors in Wales are considering leaving the NHS due to pay and working conditions.

A survey carried out by the British Medical Association (BMA) Cymru painted a grim picture of morale in the NHS in Wales.

Doctors in Wales were recently given a 4.5 per cent pay rise, though many feel that this is not adequate.

A record number of doctors responded to the BMA survey - almost triple last year's response rate with 1,397 members responding.

Doctors responding to the survey warned that the NHS is "close to collapse" and that they felt burned out.

Some said that the lack of staff has made it impossible to provide excellent care and worried for patient's safety.

Others repeated these concerns and added that they felt undervalued and that the only options available to doctors is either to reduce their hours, retire early, or move abroad.

In the specific case of pay, 79 per cent of respondents said that the pay award - which is below inflation - has further decreased morale - and 52 per cent said they are more likely to leave the NHS because of the pay award.

A further 53 per cent of respondents said they were disappointed with the pay award and 36 per cent said they were angry.

Dr Iona Collins, chairwoman of the BMA’s Welsh Council, said: "Doctors work in the NHS because they believe in the NHS. Both working conditions and pay, however, keep challenging their decision to remain employed by the NHS.

"Doctors' take-home pay has reduced over several years, making the NHS an increasingly unattractive employer.

"To make matters worse, doctors are on the receiving end of complex pension tax bills, resulting in some doctors essentially working for free, and others finding out that they have lost money by going to work in first place.

"This means that doctors cannot increase their usual working hours resulting in no chance of making significant progress to reduce waiting lists.

"It’s not difficult to understand why so many senior doctors are retiring early and younger doctors are moving abroad or finding alternative careers.

"This situation has got so bad that last year, 52 per cent of NHS consultant physician posts in England and Wales remained vacant.

"We are running out of time. Crisis after crisis in our NHS is making headline news, with the two root causes relating to medical staffing and medical resources.

"Covid has accelerated a problem which has been evolving for years and there is no point having Covid recovery plans when there is not enough medical staff to deliver the existing services, let alone trying to increase the services available.

"We read so many different reports highlighting the same two problems of not enough staffing and not enough resources.

"NHS Wales needs to take a good look at how it currently values its medical workforce and reconsider the proposed pay award accordingly.

"Unreasonable pay will simply drive more doctors out of our NHS, after all, when we’re ill, we’re more likely to be treated by a doctor than a spreadsheet."

The Welsh Government insist that they are not able to do much to rectify the issues described without more funding from the UK Government in Westminster.

A Welsh Government spokesman said: "We have accepted the recommendations of NHS pay review bodies.

"In announcing our pay award for the NHS workforce in Wales, we made clear that without additional funding from the UK Government, there are limits to how far we can go to address these concerns in Wales.

"We continue to press the UK Government to provide additional funding necessary for fair pay rises for public sector workers.

"We recognise the hard work of those working within the NHS, and we have seen an increase in the number of staff directly employed by the NHS since March 2021."

BMA Cymru representatives will meet with the minister for health and social services, Eluned Morgan, in September.