A ballot for strike action by NHS resident doctors is “premature” and “unnecessary”, the Health Secretary has said, though he indicated they would not get the pay rise they are asking for.
Wes Streeting said the British Medical Association (BMA), which announced the ballot on Friday, should wait for the pay offer from the Government, which he expects to be within the next few weeks.
He told Times Radio: “Firstly, it’s disappointing that the ballot for strike action is going out before they’ve received their pay offer.
“And I think when resident doctors see the pay offer they will see that we are moving in the right direction, that we are responding to the, I think, quite genuine and real anxieties that they feel about the level of pay, about the conditions they’re working in and also about their prospects for career progression.
“They’ve actually got a Health Secretary and a Government that is actually quite sympathetic to the pressures that they’re facing.”
Mr Streeting said he had spent time talking to doctors on the front line who are at the early stages of their career “and I’ve been really struck by how anxious and pessimistic people are feeling at the start of their career, when they should be feeling optimistic and confident”.
But he added: “What they’re actually asking for in terms of full pay restoration… I met with them last week, and I said to them: ‘In all honesty, asking for around RPI plus 8% or 9% – I can’t honestly say we’ll be able to deliver that year-on-year’.
“But they could also judge us by action not just our words – within weeks of (Labour) coming in (to office) they got that generous pay deal which ended (last year’s) strikes.”
Mr Streeting said the Government wanted to work “in partnership” with all staff in the NHS.
“So I think this ballot is unnecessary, I think it’s premature, and I think when resident doctors receive their pay offer, they will see this is a Government that is moving their pay, their conditions and their career progression in the right direction,” he said.
Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme what he would say to doctors considering industrial action, Mr Streeting replied: “We haven’t made the pay offer yet, so I would just say to the BMA, hold your horses for a moment, wait until you get the pay offer.
“Then make a decision about where you think we are.”
Of Labour’s mission, he said: “We know that the NHS is in jeopardy, not just because of the scale of the crisis we inherited, but because we have political opponents in Reform and the Conservative Party who do not even believe in the NHS.
“(Reform UK leader) Nigel Farage said very clearly during the election campaign, he does not believe in a taxpayer-funded NHS.
“Work with the party of the NHS to help us fix the NHS, get it back on its feet, make it fit for the future, so that you as resident doctors can get real job satisfaction and the great career that you want.
“I cannot fix the NHS on my own.
“I can only do it with that NHS team and it takes a team to turn it around, and we can only do that if doctors are on the front line, not the picket line.”
On Friday, the BMA said three weeks had passed since it warned the Government of the “consequences of the absence of a reasonable, timely pay offer”.
Its ballot for industrial action will open on May 27 and closes on July 7.
Resident doctor is the new term for junior doctor and refers to more than 50,000 qualified doctors working in GP practices and hospitals, from graduates to medics with a decade of experience.
The BMA says basic pay for resident doctors has fallen by 22.3% in real terms since 2008/2009.
The figure is based on Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation, the measure of average changes in the price of goods and services used by most households.
Resident doctor members of the BMA have taken industrial action 11 times since 2022.
NHS England estimates the walkouts led to almost 1.5 million appointments being cancelled or rescheduled.
In September, BMA members voted to accept a Government pay deal worth 22.3% on average over two years.
The deal included a pay rise of between 3.71% and 5.05% – averaging 4.05% – for resident doctors, on top of an existing pay award for 2023/24, which was backdated to April 2023.
Each part of the pay scale was uplifted by 6%, plus £1,000, as recommended by the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration, with an effective date of April 1 2024.
