NHS Leaders have warned service disruption should be expected, while the British Medical Association (BMA) said fair pay is essential to prevent any future walk-outs.
Today (15th November) thousands of resident doctors in England have begun another round of strike action, escalating a long-running dispute with the government over pay and working conditions.
The walk-out, which began at 7am this morning and is set to continue until Tuesday 18th November, is the 13th since March 2023.
NHS leaders have forewarned that the latest strike will add additional strain onto frontline services, with staffing levels, appointments and operations expected to be the hardest hit.
However, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has ruled out meeting doctors’ demands for a significant pay rise.
The BMA is arguing that resident doctors, who were previously known as junior doctors, need a 26% pay increase to restore earnings to their 2008 value, once inflation is taken into account. The union claims that today’s dispute is driven not only by the most recent offers but by what it describes as more than a decade of real-terms pay erosion.
Dr Tom Dolphin, chair of the BMA, told Sky News that doctors’ earnings remain ‘way down’ compared with 2008. Speaking to Sky’s health correspondent Ashish Joshi, he outlined how far pay had fallen: ‘When we started the dispute…the lowest level of the resident doctors were being paid £14 an hour.
‘There were some pay rises over the last couple of years that brought that partly back to the value it should be at, but not all the way. The Secretary of State himself called it a journey, implying there were further steps to come, but we haven’t seen that.’
Against this backdrop, the BMA has also said that doctors should not be pulled from the picket lines to cover routine NHS work during the strike. Dr Jack Fletcher, chair of the union’s resident doctors committee, accused NHS leaders of pressuring staff, saying managers were ’emotionally blackmailing frontline staff’.
‘What has been offered so far still leaves thousands of resident doctors without a role this year, and the government seems determined to cut pay even further next year,’ Fletcher added.
During the five-day strike, NHS England have urged patients to continue coming forward for care and attend any planned appointments unless they hear otherwise.
People who require emergency attention are also being advised to keep using 999 or A&E as normal, while NHS 111 is also available.
Image: Shutterstock
In related news:
Landmark study of weight-loss medicines to be conducted in Scotland
Leave a Reply