Resident doctors in England will go on strike from 17 to 22 December, the British Medical Association (BMA) has announced - with the health secretary Wes Streeting describing it as a “cynical attempt to wreck Christmas”.
The five-day strike in the run-up to Christmas comes as doctors accuse the government of failing to make “sufficient progress towards a viable deal on jobs and pay”.
In an email to doctors seen by The Independent, the BMA said it “gave [health secretary] Wes Streeting a window of opportunity to get back round the table” in a letter from 19 November.
The email read: “Today is 1 December. The secretary of state has not written to us and instead oversaw thousands of resident doctors turned away from IMT posts, all the while trying to push a real-terms pay cut onto us in 2026.”
Mr Streeting has described it as a “cynical attempt to wreck Christmas” and said the BMA has chosen to strike when it will “cause maximum disruption, causing untold anxiety”.
“It’s time for resident doctors to stand up to the BMA and say that enough is enough. These strikes are in no one’s interest and there is no moral justification for them. Resident doctors should ignore the BMA’s attempts to turn them into the Grinch who stole Christmas.
"My door has always been open, I have never walked away from the table, and I stand ready to do a deal that puts patients first this Christmas."
It is the second round of strike action taken by resident doctors since the election of a leadership in the resident doctors committee (RDC) in September, with North East-based Dr Jack Fletcher at the helm.
Following talks in October and November with Mr Streeting, a five-day strike was held from 14 to 19 November.
The BMA accused the government in its email on Monday of “presiding over yet another catastrophic recruitment round” and said that doctors are the “collateral damage, despite our warnings and willingness to fix this disaster by getting to a deal”.
NHS Providers chief executive Daniel Elkeles described the move as “an inflammatory act by the BMA” during a period in which the health service needs “all hands on deck”.
“We need to ensure there’s the hospital capacity too to deal with the additional demand that always comes at this time of year. That’s going to be even more challenging now. It’s totally unfair to patients and to other staff working for the NHS,” he said.
“Both sides need to get back round the table to break the logjam.”
But Dr Fletcher said the union had “no choice but to announce more strike dates” after the government failed to propose a “credible plan to fix the jobs crisis for resident doctors at the same time as pushing a real terms pay cut for them”.
He said the strikes “do not need to go ahead” if pay is gradually raised in the following years and some “common-sense fixes” are carried out by the government to “ensure both the long-term strength of our healthcare workforce”.
Second-year doctors applying for training posts are being asked to provide evidence of experience “well beyond what would have previously been asked of them”, he said.
But Mr Streeting said the government had “offered to create more jobs and put money back in resident doctors’ pockets” in a deal which the “BMA rejected it out of hand”.
He added: "Now, without a single conversation with the government, they’re threatening more strikes at the busiest time of the year.”
Last month’s industrial action – which followed another round from 25 to 30 July – was the 13th strike since March 2023. The summer walkout was estimated to have cost the health service £300m.
Last week, the BMA announced it would be balloting its resident doctor members on extending its mandate for strike action, which runs out in January.
If the vote is successful, the mandate would extend to August 2026. The ballot will run from 8 December until 2 February.
