Thousands of doctors in England to walk out on five-day strike
Resident doctors will walk out at 7am for five days
Thousands of resident doctors in England are walking out from 7am today for five days in an argument over pay.
The British Medical Association (BMA) resident doctors committee confirmed the strike action after they couldn't reach an agreement with the government during talks.
The BMA said the Government failed to make an offer to “meet the scale” of the challenges felt by medics.
The government said they are committed to progress to improve resident doctors' working lives.
Resident doctors, formerly known as Junior doctors, walk at at 7am on Friday, with strike action due to finish on Wednesday morning.
Health Secretary "deeply regrets" strikes
Health Secretary Wes Streeting sent a personal letter to NHS resident doctors yesterday, saying, “I deeply regret the position we now find ourselves in.”
He also said he does not now believe the British Medical Association’s resident doctors committee (RDC) has “engaged with me in good faith” over bids to avert the strike.
In the letter sent on Thursday afternoon, seen by the PA news agency, Mr Streeting said: “I wanted to write to you personally about the situation we find ourselves in.
“This Government came into office, just over a year ago, with a great deal of sympathy for the arguments that resident doctors were making about pay, working conditions and career progression.
“I was determined to build a genuine partnership with the… RDC to make real improvements on all three fronts.
“We have made progress together. While some of my critics in Parliament and the media believe I was naive to agree such a generous pay deal to end the strikes last year, I stand by that choice.”
Mr Streeting said he had agreed that pay deal “because I believed it to be fair”, adding resident doctors have now had an average 28.9% pay award under Labour.
He added: “Strike action should always be a last resort – not the action you take immediately following a 28.9% pay award from a Government that is committed to working with you to further improve your lives at work."
BMA say the government offer isn't good enough
When the strike was announced, Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, co-chairs of the BMA’s resident doctors committee, said: “We have always said that no doctor wants to strike and all it would take to avoid it is a credible path to pay restoration offered by the Government.
“We came to talks in good faith, keen to explore real solutions to the problems facing resident doctors today.
“Unfortunately, we did not receive an offer that would meet the scale of those challenges.
“While we were happy to discuss non-pay issues that affect doctors’ finances we have always been upfront that this is at its core a pay dispute.
“The simplest and most direct means of restoring the more than a fifth of our pay that has eroded since 2008 is to raise our pay.
“While we were keen to discuss other items, it was made very clear by the Government that this obvious course of action was going to remain off the table.”
The statement added that “student debt and the cost of training remain crushing burdens on the finances of resident doctors” and while the BMA hoped there would be “new ideas” to tackle this, what was proposed “would not have been significant enough to change the day-to-day financial situation for our members”.
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