Resident doctors in England will strike for five days later this month in their campaign for a 29% pay rise. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, denounced the move as “completely unreasonable”.
Resident doctors – formerly known as junior doctors – working in the NHS will withdraw their labour from 7am on Friday 25 July and not return until 7am the following Wednesday.
Streeting and the doctors’ union, the British Medical Association (BMA), blamed each other for the looming action, amid a hardening of attitudes on both sides of the dispute.
Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, the co-chairs of the BMA’s resident doctors committee, insisted that they had “made every effort to avoid strike action” when they met Streeting for talks on Tuesday.
But they blamed ministers’ refusal to consider further increasing a 5.4% pay rise for their decision to strike for five days.
“Unfortunately the government has stated that it will not negotiate on pay, wanting to focus on non-pay elements, without suggesting what these might be,” they said. “Without a credible offer to keep us on the path to restore our pay, we have no choice but to call strikes.”
Danny Mortimer, the chief executive of NHS Employers, which represents NHS trusts in pay negotiations with trade unions, said the stoppage would have “a huge impact on the NHS and its patients” and lead to thousands of cancelled appointments and operations.
He also endorsed Streeting’s claim that the government cannot afford to improve upon this year’s 5.4% pay rise for England’s 77,000 resident doctors.
The BMA wants ministers to commit to a 29% pay rise over the next few years. Resident doctors secured a 22% rise for 2023-24 and 2024-25 in a deal with Streeting last summer. The latest 5.4% uplift works out as a total rise of 28.9% over three years.
Streeting wrote to the union on Wednesday, saying: “Ultimately, we are all public servants. The public won’t see why, after a 28.9% pay rise, you would still walk out on strike, and neither do I.”
In separate remarks, he accused resident doctors of undermining what he has promised will be a turning point in the NHS’s fortunes.
“No trade union in British history has seen its members receive a 28.9% pay rise only to immediately respond with strikes,” he said. “This is completely unreasonable. The NHS recovery is hanging by a thread and the BMA are threatening to pull it.”
Streeting added that fewer than half of the 53,766 resident doctors who were eligible to take part in the strike ballot had voted to walk out. Turnout in the ballot was just 55%, with 90% of those who took part backing strike action.
A Downing Street spokesperson said: “We’re disappointed at this move, despite the majority of BMA resident doctors not voting for strikes.”
Daniel Elkeles, the chief executive of the hospital group NHS Providers, said: “Announcing five days of strike action with just two weeks’ notice can only be harmful.
“It’s totally unfair to patients whose care will be cancelled at such short notice just as the NHS was beginning to turn the tide on reducing waiting lists.”
