The doctors’ union chief whose NHS strikes are costing taxpayers billions is cashing in with a lucrative sideline, the Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Dr Jack Fletcher co-founded a money-spinning firm which supplies payroll software to the health service at the same time doctors are downing tools over pay and holding the nation to ransom.
The 30-year-old is the British Medical Association baron behind the crippling strikes by resident doctors – formerly known as junior doctors. So far, their 15 strikes have cost the NHS an estimated £3billion - and counting.
Dr Fletcher, a medic at South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, has a private tech start-up company, PayPulse Ltd. It is charging the NHS £20,000 to manage doctors’ overtime claims - and aims to win more contracts.
The BMA official policy states it has ‘consistently opposed the outsourcing of NHS contracts to the independent sector’ on the grounds it ‘wastes vital NHS time and money’. Yesterday the BMA insisted this policy ‘focuses’ only on clinical services, rather than software services.
Dr Fletcher, who graduated from Newcastle University in 2020, co-founded PayPulse Ltd in September 2023. Companies House records show he holds a 33 per cent stake, along with another doctor and a software engineer.
On the PayPulse website, Dr Fletcher, who worked as a technical specialist in an Apple store while a medical student, is pictured wearing sunglasses and billed as ‘the doctor with the big ideas, a drawing board and an eye for design’.
According to micro company accounts made up to September 30, 2025, PayPulse Ltd’s assets of just £431 in 2024 rose to £45,914 last year.
Sunny outlook: Dr Jack Fletcher, the young union firebrand bringing costly strikes to the NHS while maintaining a money-spinning sideline
Dr Jack Fletcher, chairman of the BMA resident doctors committee, pictured with resident doctors picketing outside St Thomas Hospital in Westminster at the start of a six day strike over pay on April 7, 2026
Dr Fletcher's profile picture on his social media account with X, which he uses to advocate for doctors
PayPulse supplies software, marketed as a platform built in partnership with the NHS, that plans accurate work schedules and allows doctors to submit overtime reports that feed directly into the payroll system.
The BMA does not ban its officers from owning commercial companies. But the union demands high levels of transparency and the active management of any perceived conflicts of interest.
Union rules require senior leaders to fully declare their commercial interests to both the BMA and their NHS employers.
The BMA warns that those running private companies reliant on NHS work face an ‘inherent risk’ that their commercial interests ‘could be perceived as pulling in the opposite direction to official BMA policy’.
The revelation of Dr Fletcher’s professional double life comes amid the ongoing pay dispute with resident doctors. They secured a 28.9 per cent pay rise after strike action began in March 2023.
This year, there was a disputed breakdown in pay negotiations. Dr Fletcher was accused of reneging on a multi-year pay settlement with Health Secretary Wes Streeting. Health officials and sources present at the talks in March claimed Dr Fletcher had ‘shaken hands’ on the deal.
But the 69-member resident doctors’ committee refused to put the proposed agreement to a union ballot and announced a six-day walkout over the Easter holidays.
The industrial dispute involves demands for a further 26 per cent pay rise, which the union states is necessary to achieve full pay restoration to 2008 levels.
Dr Fletcher during the crippling six-day walkout by resident doctors - formerly known as junior doctors
Doctors' union chief Dr Fletcher rallying a crowd of striking medics on the 15th walkout organised by the British Medical Association (BMA)
Junior doctors - now called resident doctors - picketing in pursuit of higher pay, after years of seeing their wages stagnate
The rejected offer would have provided an above-inflation 4.9 per cent increase for 2026-27 alongside an extra 4,500 specialty training posts.
Asked about Dr Fletcher’s involvement in PayPulse Ltd yesterday, the South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said it ‘maintains a register of interests for staff and board members to ensure transparency and manage potential conflicts. All policies and protocols were strictly followed before entering this contractual agreement’.
Dr Fletcher’s company is a start-up which won its first £20,000 contract with his own health trust. Asked if the trust had offered the contract out to competitive tender, it confirmed it had not.
It said: ‘The contract was awarded under a single action waiver in line with our procurement processes.’ The firm is marketing itself to other NHS trusts.
The BMA and PayPulse said Dr Fletcher had ‘stepped back from his commercial role’ after becoming chairman of the resident doctors’ committee in September last year. But neither disputed that Dr Fletcher remains a director and a 33 per cent shareholder.
The BMA said it ‘takes transparency by its elected members and leaders very seriously, and Dr Jack Fletcher has made his involvement in PayPulse apparent from the start’, adding: ‘We are satisfied that any potential conflict has been appropriately managed in line with the BMA’s policy while he continues to fight for fair pay for doctors in the NHS.’
The BMA blamed the cost of the strikes on ‘the Government’s failure to produce a credible plan for fair pay, not a software company’.
Dr Fletcher did not make any comment, but a spokesman for his company said: ‘PayPulse provides high-quality software solutions, developed in collaboration with doctors and other professionals in South Tees.’
It said Dr Fletcher ‘continues to input into the creative direction of the company and manages our data governance’. It said neither of these two roles was ‘financially compensated’.