Resident doctors have refused to rule out further strike action as their current walkout comes to a close.
Hospital leaders have called on the British Medical Association (BMA) and the Government to end the strikes after five days of disruption across the NHS in England.
Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, co chairs of the BMA’s Resident Doctors Committee (RDC), said that they are willing to re-enter talks with the Government.
The latest strike began on Friday amid an ongoing row over pay.
Dozens of resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, attended a picket line on Tuesday at King George Hospital in Ilford, one of the hospitals which serve the constituents of Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
When asked if talks would begin when the strike ends at 7am on Wednesday, Dr Ryan told reporters: “I hope so. We have always said that our door is open for talks.
“Should he have called us over the weekend to say: ‘Come around the table, here’s an offer I’ve got’, we would have absolutely done so, with the idea that we could have called off the strike action.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t heard from him yet. That doesn’t mean that he’s not going to call us tomorrow – our door is always open.”
Dr Nieuwoudt said: “There does not need to be a single other day of industrial action at all.
“All Wes Streeting needs to do is come to us now and talk to us now, because that’s what doctors want and that’s what patients need.”
Asked if there will be more strikes, Dr Ryan added: “There doesn’t need to be a single day of strike action.
“Wes Streeting knows what he has to do. If he wants to resolve the dispute, he has to contact us and present a credible offer.
“We do have a mandate that is going all the way into January but… it’s a damn shame we have to do a single day of strike action and Mr Streeting can prevent that.”
She went on: “We’ve been very clear that we didn’t actually want to go on strike at all and I have no intention of continuing this forever.
“All we need is Mr Streeting to do what he said he was going to do, which was come to the negotiating table and present us an offer that is the next step on the journey to pay restoration.”
The union has also launched a “linked dispute” with the Government over a lack of places for doctors in training.
The BMA said that this year there were more than 30,000 resident doctors applying for just 10,000 specialty training places.
A poll by the union, conducted on 4,400 doctors over the last week, found that 52% of resident doctors completing their second year of training – when they enter specialty training – do not have substantive employment lined up from August.
In a statement, the co-chairs of the RDC said: “Across the NHS, this means potentially thousands of UK doctors are left in employment limbo when patients desperately need their care.”
Dr Layla McCay, director of policy at NHS Confederation, told BBC Breakfast: “Resident doctors have recently had a very substantial increase in their pay and the Government has been pretty clear that at the moment, there isn’t more money to be negotiated.
“Clearly the Government is quite keen to have those discussions about other non-pay factors, like workforce conditions.
“I think that the hope of all healthcare leaders is that the BMA will get around the table with the Government and figure out a solution to this, because what absolutely nobody wants to see is any further cases of industrial action after this one.”
She said people will have had their care “postponed, disrupted or cancelled” but because the NHS had “maintained as much care as possible” it is likely that there will have been fewer cancellations compared with previous strikes.
NHS officials have pledged that cancelled bookings would be rescheduled within two weeks but warned of knock-on impacts for other patients.
Mr Streeting has said the union will not be allowed to “hold the country to ransom” after receiving a 28.9% pay award over the last three years, the highest across the public sector.
The BMA has said that despite this uplift, pay for resident doctors has declined by a fifth since 2008 once inflation is taken into account.
Mr Streeting will also be seeking to appease other NHS staff groups after their pay deal was rejected by two unions and is also expected to be rejected by nurses.
No doctor today is worth less than they were 17 years ago.
— Resident Doctors (@BMAResidents) July 28, 2025
That’s why we’re standing together for #PayRestoration. pic.twitter.com/ZjFPRGJF2E
The Royal College of Nursing, which represents hundreds of thousands of nurses across the NHS in England, is balloting its members on the 3.6% pay award offered for 2025/26 in England.
It is expected that nurses will overwhelmingly reject the pay offer when the ballot concludes later this week.
A new poll has found that Britons are split on the idea of nurses striking over pay.
The YouGov survey found that 19% of 4,300 British adults “strongly support” nurses going on strike while 28% “somewhat” support this.
Some 23% said they “strongly oppose” strike action while one in five (20%) “somewhat oppose” it.
Meanwhile health workers from the GMB and Unite unions have also rejected the offer, increasing the threat of further industrial action in the NHS.
Lionesses parade live: Fans sing ‘it’s coming home’ as Euro 2025 winners celebrate
Lionesses lift Euros trophy in front of thousands at Buckingham Palace
Live: Lionesses victory parade as fans line London streets to celebrate Euro 2025 win
Navy flagship HMS Prince of Wales leaves Australia during eight-month deployment
Welfare cuts will still plunge thousands into poverty despite U-turn, MPs warn
Two more men charged after protest outside migrant hotel in Epping
