Resident doctors in England will go on strike this week as the government has failed to make an offer that would “meet the scale” of the challenges felt by medics, the British Medical Association (BMA) has said.More than 26,000 resident doctors voted in favour of the industrial action earlier this month, amid a long-running dispute centred on pay.
The term “resident doctor” replaced “junior doctor” last year, in a bid to better reflect their expertise and responsibilities.They will stage a full walk out from 7am on Friday 25 July until 7am on Wednesday 30 July.Crunch talks have been held between the union and Health Secretary Wes Streeting in recent days. But the co-chairs of the BMA’s resident doctors committee said on Tuesday “it was made very clear” by the government that a pay rise is “off the table”.
Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt said: “While we were happy to discuss non-pay issues that affect doctors’ finances we have always been upfront that this is at its core a pay dispute.”The simplest and most direct means of restoring the more than a fifth of our pay that has eroded since 2008 is to raise our pay.”
The BMA is calling for resident doctors to be given a salary increase of 29.2% and argues this is the level at which pay has declined in real terms since 2008, when adjusting for inflation.The co-chairs said: “Student debt and the cost of training remain crushing burdens on the finances of resident doctors.
“We had hoped that there would be enough new ideas about relieving these burdens that we could make some progress in these talks.”Disappointingly, what we saw would not have been significant enough to change the day-to-day financial situation for our members.”
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Why are junior doctors striking again?
“The non-pay aspects of last year’s pay deal have still not been delivered, which has shaken the confidence of our members that any further non-pay elements would be honoured,” they added.The statement concluded: “At present it looks as if these talks have not seen such a breakthrough and so regrettably, strikes must now proceed.”However our door remains open, and we are glad to have met with the Secretary of State in a constructive spirit. We want to keep talking but we don’t accept we can’t talk about pay.”
Health Secretary labels strike ‘completely unjustified’In response, Mr Streeting has accused the BMA of “recklessly and needlessly” opting for strike action.”The BMA would have lost nothing by taking up the offer to postpone strike action to negotiate a package that would improve the working lives of resident doctors,” he said.The strikes “will cause unnecessary disruption to patients [and] put additional pressure on their NHS colleagues,” he added.”All of my attention will be now on averting harm to patients and supporting NHS staff at work.”
Mr Streeting said the doctors have received a 28.9% pay rise in the last three years.He continued: “Strike action is completely unjustified, completely unprecedented in the history of British trade unionism and shows a complete disdain for patients and the wider recovery of the NHS.”
