Doctors have confirmed they will go on strike for five days from Friday after crunch talks with the government failed. Health Secretary Wes Streeting failed to make a “significant” offer to avert the walkout, the British Medical Association said.
The union said a letter to their resident doctors committee (RDC) from Mr Streeting “did not go far enough to warrant calling off the strikes”. They will stage a full walk out from 7am on Friday 25 July until 7am on Wednesday 30 July.
RDC co-chairs Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt said: “We have always said that no doctor wants to strike and all it would take to avoid it is a credible path to pay restoration offered by the government.
“We came to talks in good faith, keen to explore real solutions to the problems facing resident doctors today.
“Unfortunately, we did not receive an offer that would meet the scale of those challenges.
“While we were happy to discuss non-pay issues that affect doctors’ finances we have always been upfront that this is at its core a pay dispute.”
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. Read our Privacy Policy
Up to 50,000 resident doctors in England, formerly known as junior doctors, are expected to join the industrial action.
They are demanding a 29% pay rise.
Resident doctors were awarded an average 5.4% pay rise for this financial year, following a 22% increase over the previous two years.
But the BMA says wages are still around 20% lower in real terms than in 2008 and are demanding “pay restoration”.
Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: “After constructive discussion with BMA representatives in recent days, the opportunity was there for the BMA to work with us on a range of options that would have made a real difference to resident doctors’ working conditions and created extra roles to deal with the bottlenecks that hold back their career progression. Instead, they have recklessly and needlessly opted for strike action.
“The BMA would have lost nothing by taking up the offer to postpone strike action to negotiate a package that would improve the working lives of resident doctors. By refusing to do so, they will cause unnecessary disruption to patients, put additional pressure on their NHS colleagues and not take the opportunity to improve their own working conditions.
“All of my attention will be now on averting harm to patients and supporting NHS staff at work.
“After a 28.9% pay hike in the last three years and the highest pay rise in the public sector two years in a row, strike action is completely unjustified, completely unprecedented in the history of British trade unionism and shows a complete disdain for patients and the wider recovery of the NHS.“
