Doctors and nurses are to get inflation-busting pay rises next year after the government accepted in full the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies, it was announced today.

But the rises were given a cool reaction by nursing leaders, who said that it would disappoint many rank and file nurses and was unlikely to help solve the health service's chronic nursing shortage.

And the British Medical Association said it was "hardly the winter tonic that doctors been hoping for" and would do nothing to address the shortfall in GP numbers or raise morale in the profession as a whole.

All nurses working in the NHS will receive a 3.7% salary increase, while 70,000 senior nurses will receive pay hikes of more than 5%, the Department of Health said.

Nurses in London will see their pay rise by between 6.2% and 9% after additional supplements such as cost-of-living payments are included.

Doctors - who had demanded a 14% rise to bring them into line with professions such as the law - will receive a 3.9% pay rise from next year - again, above the rate of inflation.

Christine Hancock, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: "It will be good news for ward sisters, specialist clinical nurses and community nurses who have borne the brunt of pressures and who are key to modernising the health service.

"The government has listened to the RCN's concerns about keeping the most experienced nurses - this extra money should help keep them in the NHS."

But she added: "Many staff nurses will be disappointed by a basic uplift of 3.7% as alone it won't bring fast progress in encouraging nurses back to the health service."

Health secretary Alan Milburn said: "These fair and affordable pay rises will help increase still further the numbers of trained, qualified staff working in the NHS."

These across-the-board pay increases go hand-in-hand with targeted efforts to help staff who live in the most expensive parts of the country, to make sure junior doctors are better rewarded for their hard work, and to invest in providing proper childcare facilities for NHS staff.

He said the pay awards were affordable for the NHS, even though they are above the headline inflation rate of 3.2% - although the NHS Confederation, which represents trusts and health authorities, warned that the awards were "at the edges of affordability".

Karen Jennings, head of nursing at the public sector union Unison, said the awards were a "missed opportunity" to increase the pay of "bedside" nurses - and the NHS now ran the risk of seeing more of these staff leave.