A BOLTON doctor has blasted a pay offer for medics, branding it a "wage cut".

Dr Aisha Rahim, who works as a psychiatrist for the Greater Manchester West Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust is furious at the below inflation pay rise offered to doctors by the Department of Health.

She says the rise, which the British Medical Association (BMA) describes as "below-inflation", will force qualified doctors to move abroad.

Dr Rahim is a senior house officer for the trust, which looks after patients with mental health problems in Bolton.

She said: "It makes me so angry. It costs the taxpayer up to £250,000 to train doctors and many of them will feel they have no option but to move to another country to practice medicine.

"This isn't the only area of the NHS where this is happening. It's happening to nurses too. People are becoming angry with what's going on."

Hospital doctors have been offered a 2.2 per cent pay rise, while nurses and other hospital staff are to get a 2.75 per cent increase.

Junior doctors will also lose their entitlement to free accommodation, which the BMA estimates was around £400 a month.