Resident doctors have refused to rule out further strike action as their current five-day walkout across NHS England comes to a close. The British Medical Association (BMA) says it remains willing to re-enter talks with the Government to resolve the ongoing pay dispute.
Hospital leaders have called on both the BMA and the Government to end the strikes after five days of disruption across the health service. The latest industrial action began on Friday amid an ongoing row over pay restoration for resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors.
Doctors demand Government talks
Dozens of resident doctors attended a picket line on Tuesday at King George Hospital in Ilford, one of the hospitals serving the constituents of Health Secretary Wes Streeting. Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, co-chairs of the BMA's Resident Doctors Committee, said their door remains open for negotiations.
When asked if talks would begin when the strike ends at 7am on Wednesday, Dr Ryan told reporters: "I hope so. We have always said that our door is open for talks. Should he have called us over the weekend to say: 'Come around the table, here's an offer I've got', we would have absolutely done so, with the idea that we could have called off the strike action."
Strike mandate extends to January
Dr Nieuwoudt said there does not need to be a single other day of industrial action if the Health Secretary engages in talks. "All Wes Streeting needs to do is come to us now and talk to us now, because that's what doctors want and that's what patients need," he said.
Asked about future strikes, Dr Ryan added: "There doesn't need to be a single day of strike action. Wes Streeting knows what he has to do. If he wants to resolve the dispute, he has to contact us and present a credible offer." She confirmed the union has a mandate for strike action extending into January.
Training places shortage sparks dispute
The BMA has launched a separate "linked dispute" with the Government over a lack of training places for doctors. The union said this year there were more than 30,000 resident doctors applying for just 10,000 specialty training places.
A poll by the union, conducted on 4,400 doctors over the last week, found that 52% of resident doctors completing their second year of training do not have substantive employment lined up from August. The BMA said this means potentially thousands of UK doctors are left in employment limbo when patients desperately need their care.
NHS leaders call for resolution
Dr Layla McCay, director of policy at NHS Confederation, told BBC Breakfast that resident doctors have recently received a substantial pay increase and the Government has been clear there is no more money available. She said the hope of healthcare leaders is that the BMA will get around the table with the Government to find a solution.
McCay said people will have had their care "postponed, disrupted or cancelled" but because the NHS maintained as much care as possible, there will likely have been fewer cancellations compared with previous strikes. NHS officials have pledged that cancelled bookings would be rescheduled within two weeks.
Pay dispute continues despite increases
Streeting has said the union will not be allowed to "hold the country to ransom" after receiving a 28.9% pay award over the last three years, the highest across the public sector. However, the BMA maintains that despite this uplift, pay for resident doctors has declined by a fifth since 2008 once inflation is taken into account.
The Health Secretary also faces pressure from other NHS staff groups after their pay deal was rejected by two unions and is expected to be rejected by nurses. The Royal College of Nursing is balloting its members on the 3.6% pay award offered for 2025/26 in England, with nurses expected to overwhelmingly reject the offer when the ballot concludes this week.
Public split on nursing strikes
A new YouGov poll has found that Britons are divided on the idea of nurses striking over pay. The survey of 4,300 British adults found that 19% "strongly support" nurses going on strike while 28% "somewhat" support this action.
Some 23% said they "strongly oppose" strike action while one in five somewhat oppose it. Meanwhile, health workers from the GMB and Unite unions have also rejected the Government's pay offer, increasing the threat of further industrial action across the NHS.
(PA) Note: This article has been edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
