Wes Streeting has hit out at the doctors’ union after it announced a fresh round of strikes, warning it is a “slap in the face” for NHS staff and will play directly into the hands of Nigel Farage.
The health secretary accused the British Medical Association (BMA) of trying to “wreck” the NHS recovery with a “rush to industrial action” after it announced resident doctors in England would strike on five consecutive days next month in an ongoing row over jobs and pay.
The association claims doctors are left unemployed and struggling to find jobs, while shifts in
But Mr Streeting, writing exclusively in The Independent, said the strike “flies in the face of the wishes of their patients who have consistently opposed these disruptive walkouts”.
Resident doctors have been in a pay dispute since March 2023, and next month’s industrial action will be the 13th strike since it began. They were awarded a 28.9 per cent pay rise over the last three years, but the BMA says wages are still around 20 per cent lower in real terms than in 2008.
The BMA argues the value of resident doctors’ pay has been eroded by inflation since 2008-09 and has published hourly pay figures showing what the pay “restoration” it is asking for would look like.
However, Mr Streeting described the move as “preposterous” and accused the BMA of “blocking a better deal for doctors” while most “want to get on with their jobs”.
“It is a slap in the face for the rest of the NHS workforce who will be left picking up the pieces, and most of all their patients who will see treatment cancelled,” he wrote.
“There is not a more pro-NHS, pro-resident doctor government waiting in the wings. If the BMA try to wreck the NHS’s recovery, the only person who benefits is Nigel Farage.”
The health secretary, who said he had met with the BMA’s new leadership last week for “respectful, constructive and hopeful” talks, stressed “it’s not too late” to call off the “needless strikes and return to meaningful dialogue”.
He said he agreed with the BMA that parts of the training and employment for resident doctors are “grossly unfair” and claimed he was trying to improve their lives.
“Instead of fighting the battles of the past, let’s together build an NHS fit for the future,” he added.
Doctors are set to strike from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November. It comes after resident doctors went on strike in July.
Resident doctors, previously known as junior doctors, make up around half of all doctors in the NHS, and the BMA is arguing that better pay will stop them leaving.
“This is not where we wanted to be,” Dr Jack Fletcher, chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee (RDC), said when announcing the strikes.
“We have spent the last week in talks with government, pressing the health secretary to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed,” Dr Fletcher added.
“We know from our own survey half of second year doctors in England are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment, and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.
“While we want to get a deal done, the government seemingly does not, leaving us with little option but to call for strike action.”
NHS Providers, which represents trusts, also warned patients will “pay the price” of doctors walking out for five days.
Chief executive of NHS Providers Daniel Elkeles said: “Another strike by resident doctors is the last thing the NHS needs, particularly as we head into what’s going to be another challenging winter for the health service.
“Trust leaders will do everything they can to prepare for this five-day walkout, but once again, it’ll be patients that will be left paying the price.”
The strikes are expected to cause significant disruption, particularly in hospitals, coming as it does during the health service’s busiest time of the year.
Flu cases are already on the rise, particularly in children, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has warned.
Dr Conall Watson, consultant epidemiologist at the UKHSA, said the “data is showing a rise in positive tests for flu, particularly in children and younger adults, as well as an increase in GP and A&E attendances”.
Meanwhile, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has said doctors “should not be going on strike”.
“Conservative policy is to ban strikes by doctors in the same way the police and the army cannot go on strike,” she said. “We need to have adequate levels of healthcare. We had legislation that would provide minimum service levels, Labour scrapped it.”
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in general practice.
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