The health secretary and the BMA trade accusations over who bears responsibility for the collapse of talksGood morning. Resident doctors in English hospitals started a six-day strike at 7am this morning. Many of them will continue to work, but there will be enough of them joining the strike to have a significant impact on the care hospitals can deliver.
This morning Wes Streeting, the health secretary, deployed a new statistic in his PR battle against the BMA, the doctors’ union organised the strikes. We think that strikes cost £50m a day. Let’s then assume that other NHS staff would understandably demand the same.
Then that cost would be more like £30bn a year. That is more than the entire cost of the Ministry of Justice’s entire budget for running the criminal justice system. Continue reading...