Wes Streeting has accused resident doctors of “torpedoing” their own pay rises and training jobs by walking out on strike again, as tens of thousands of doctors began a six-day stoppage in England.
The health secretary said there was a “legitimacy” to concerns over jobs and wages but that the British Medical Association had scuppered any chance of a breakthrough when it rejected what he said was a serious offer from the government to transform medics’ conditions.
Resident doctors began their longest strike yet at 7am on Tuesday after talks to end the long-running dispute collapsed. Walking out for a fourth year in a row, this is the 15th time they have staged industrial action since March 2023 in their campaign for “full pay restoration”.
NHS officials told the Guardian the strike would cost the health service an estimated £300m, lead to appointments being cancelled, and would force patients to wait longer for tests, treatment and surgery. Health leaders have pleaded with patients not to be put off seeking care they need this week.
With this upcoming round of strikes, costs to the NHS are estimated to go above £3bn since 2023, with Tuesday seeing the 60th day of industrial action by resident doctors in the past three years, according to analysis by the Times and Telegraph. The Guardian put this estimate to the NHS which said that while it did not provide formal figures, it did not object to the £3bn estimate.
Talks on Tuesday and Wednesday last week failed to reach a compromise that would have led to the BMA suspending or cancelling the strike. The union and ministers remain far apart on a number of key issues, including pay.
Speaking to the Guardian before the walkout, Streeting said the BMA had not only killed off chances of securing better pay and more jobs for medics, but now threatened to derail progress made by the NHS on waiting times.
“After months of detailed negotiations, collaboration and compromise, we put forward a deal would have delivered an average pay rise this year of 4.9%, a pay boost of at least 6.2% for the lowest-paid doctors, and an overall pay increase of 35.2% on average compared with four years ago.”
The government had also listened to concerns about career progression and training bottlenecks and “responded with a serious plan”, Streeting said.
“We rushed through emergency legislation to prioritise UK graduates for training places, reducing competition from four to one to less than two to one. This deal would have gone further by introducing up to 4,500 additional specialty training posts over three years, including 1,000 this April, alongside support such as reimbursing mandatory exam fees that can cost thousands.
“Instead of accepting this offer, the BMA rejected it outright and announced immediate strike action. Not only does this torpedo the pay rises and training posts available to resident doctors, but it also puts at risk the recovery of the NHS.”
The BMA has been seeking a 26% pay rise, spread over several years. It declared its six-day strike in response to what it said was the government having “shifted the goalposts” after weeks of productive negotiations.
The Guardian reported that the sudden breakdown of the talks was prompted by a row over when resident doctors would receive £700m of extra “progression pay”, which Streeting had agreed to give them to help meet their pay demands.
The health secretary said it should be given over the next three years but the BMA was seeking the full amount in the new NHS operational year, which started last Wednesday.
Speaking on Monday, the BMA resident doctors committee chair, Dr Jack Fletcher, said he was serious about ending the dispute and he blamed the government for the talks breaking down.
“My colleagues and I have spent months in the negotiating room, and a deal was taking shape, yet at the last minute the government quietly watered it down, reducing the money on the table, then stretching what was left over too many years to make it worthwhile,” he said.
“These strikes were entirely avoidable. We offered the government several opportunities to undo their last-minute goalpost shift and they refused.”
Fletcher said it was even harder to understand why the government had pulled the plug on an offer to create 1,000 extra places in specialist medical training this year.
Streeting said in a letter to the BMA last week that he had withdrawn his offer to create the extra places as that had been conditional on the BMA accepting the government’s most recent offer, which it rejected the week before.
Speaking to the Guardian ahead of the strike on Tuesday, the health secretary said: “Having rejected the deal, the BMA now complain that the proposed training places are not materialising. They can’t reject the deal and claim the benefits.”
The strike is due to end at 7am next Monday. Patients have been urged to attend planned appointments unless they have been contacted to reschedule, and those with life-threatening emergencies should still call 999 or attend A&E.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
