Wes Streeting has revealed his NHS recovery plan is ‘hanging by a thread’ as resident doctors gear up for fresh walkouts in a fortnight.
The Health Secretary accused the British Medical Association (BMA) of being ‘completely unreasonable’ after it announced the five-day walkout, which could result in the cancellation of 200,000 appointments and operations.
Resident doctors, formerly called junior doctors, will start the latest wave of industrial action from 7 am on July 25 amid demands for a 29 per cent pay rise.
Reiterating he will not negotiate on pay, Mr Streeting urged doctors to ‘abandon their rush to strike’ and reopen talks to ‘improve resident doctors’ working lives instead’.
He said: ‘No trade union in British history has seen its members receive a 28.9 per cent pay rise [over three years] only to immediately respond with strikes, and the majority of BMA resident doctors didn’t vote to strike.
‘This is completely unreasonable. The NHS recovery is hanging by a thread, and the BMA are threatening to pull it.
‘The BMA should abandon their rush to strike and work with us to improve resident doctors’ working lives instead.’
The news of mass disruption to patients comes less than a week after Labour pledged its 10-Year Health Plan ‘will make using the NHS as easy and convenient as doing your banking or shopping online.’
There are already concerns that more doctor strikes would inspire nurses and consultants to go on strike.
However, polling shows that public support has waned, with just one in five Britons now backing resident doctors going on strike.
A survey of 2,054 Britons by the Good Growth Foundation discovered that 56 per cent of the public opposes resident doctor walkouts, with only 21 per cent backing them.
In a letter to the BMA’s Resident Doctor Committee, Mr Streeting added: ‘The public won’t see why, after a 28.9 per cent pay rise, you would still walk out on strike, and neither do I.’
Since Labour took office the backlog in routine hospital treatments in England has decreased slightly from 7.6 million to 7.4 million, meaning this month’s strike could totally wipe out any progress.
On Tuesday the BMA secured a mandate for up to six months of disruption by resident doctors less than a year after the Health Secretary gave them a 22.3 per cent pay rise.
The NHS may see several strikes this summer as nurses and consultant physicians are being asked by their unions if they would like to walk out over wages.
Hospital bosses have been forced to cancel 1.5 million appointments in 11 different walkouts by the medics since 2022.
Yesterday resident doctors announced they are ‘giving the Government two weeks to come to the table to negotiate’ or they will walk out from 7 am on July 25 to 7 am on July 30.
BMA resident doctors committee co-chairs Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt said: ‘We met Wes Streeting yesterday and made every attempt to avoid strike action by opening negotiations for pay restoration.
‘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. Without a credible offer to keep us on the path to restore our pay, we have no choice but to call strikes.’
Health officials cautioned that tens of thousands of cancellations and widespread patient suffering would result from the strikes.
Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of 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.’
Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, said the walkout will ‘lead to thousands of cancelled appointments and operations’ and that ‘ultimately it is patients who will bear the brunt of this decision’.
‘It is disappointing that talks to avert industrial action seem to have broken down so quickly. But it is hard to see how the Government could commit to increasing resident doctor pay further, particularly after they have received some of the biggest public sector pay rises over the last two years.’
Unfortunately, Labour has put the entire nation in jeopardy.
The problem is that the younger generation now feels totally entitled, which worries me about our future. These junior doctors need to return to their jobs and start living in the real world.
Junior doctors are now putting their patient’s lives at risk, and this should be made a crime – if they don’t like the hours and the pay, they should have chosen another career!
The issue is that they don’t give a damn about the patients. They have forgotten the original motivation behind their career choice and are just concerned with their future earnings. Greed is a bad thing because it causes the mind to lose its moral compass.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 