Resident doctors in England have begun five days of strike action after rejecting the government's latest offer to resolve the long-running dispute over pay and jobs. The industrial action, which started on Tuesday, will run until 7am on Monday, marking the 14th strike staged by resident doctors since March 2023.
The British Medical Association (BMA) and the health secretary, Wes Streeting, met on Tuesday in a final attempt to reach an agreement but failed to do so. The government's latest offer proposed increasing the number of training places to enable early career doctors to start training in their chosen medical speciality, but did not include a pay increase for the current financial year.
Resident doctors, who make up about half of all NHS doctors, overwhelmingly rejected the offer in a BMA survey last week, with 83% voting against it on a 65% turnout. Of the 55,000 resident medics represented by the union, 35,107 took part.
Dr Jack Fletcher, chair of the BMA's resident doctors committee, said doctors going on strike were making clear that they were willing to stand up for their profession against a totally avoidable jobs crisis. He added that ministers needed to come up with a genuinely long-term plan, including a clear route to responsibly raise pay over a number of years and enough genuinely new jobs, to avoid further strikes for the remainder of this government.
NHS leaders have expressed concern about the impact on services. Prof Meghana Pandit, NHS England's national medical director, said the strikes come at an immensely challenging time, with record numbers of patients in hospital with flu for this time of year. She warned that more patients were likely to feel the impact of this round of strikes than the previous two, and that staff covering would not get the Christmas break they deserved with their families.
A Department of Health spokesperson said the secretary of state and officials had met with the BMA resident doctors committee for talks to try to avert the strikes, and that every effort had been made to reach an agreement. While the talks were constructive, they were not able to reach an agreement, and the focus would now be on working with the whole NHS team to minimise disruption.
