Junior doctors are pushing for monthly five-day strikes to be held between now and the end of the year in an escalation of the dispute over their new contract, according to leaked documents.
Senior members of the British Medical Association (BMA) are meeting on Wednesday to decide what industrial action – if any – should take place after a compromise deal on the contract agreed with the government was rejected by its members last month.
The Mail reported that it had seen a 13-page document marked “confidential”, which states that the BMA’s junior doctors committee (JDC) is proposing a full withdrawal of labour between 8am and 5pm for five consecutive weekdays in September followed by further walkouts of the same duration in each of the remaining months of the year.
The BMA refused to comment on the specifics of the industrial action being considered but a source said “anything is up for discussion”.
Last month, the JDC chair, Ellen McCourt, wrote to members informing them that the committee was planning “a rolling programme of escalated industrial action beginning in early September”.
The decision will be ultimately taken by the BMA council, effectively the union’s board of directors, which usually has 34 voting members.
There have been five walkouts by junior doctors to date, the longest lasting for two consecutive days. The first all-out strike, including junior doctors working in emergency departments, took place in April. More than 100,000 operations and outpatient appointments have been cancelled as a result of all industrial action to date.
A breakthrough in the dispute appeared to have occurred in May, when the JDC and health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, agreed a revised contract. However, almost six in 10 junior doctors – all doctors below consultant level – and medical students (58%) who belong to the British Medical Association refused to accept the compromise deal, with only 42% endorsing it.
About 37,000 BMA members, or 68% of the 54,000 trainee doctors and final and penultimate-year medical students who were eligible to vote, took part in the ballot.
After the vote, the JDC chair, Dr Johann Malawana, who had recommended the revised terms and conditions as the best settlement junior doctors could get, resigned from his position. He was replaced by McCourt.
A BMA spokeswoman said: “Junior doctors have been clear in their rejection of Jeremy Hunt’s imposed contract. It should come as no surprise that BMA council are discussing the issue of further industrial action. But at this stage, no decisions have been made.”
