Doctors

Sir Jim Mackey said hospitals were struggling to fill rotas because six-day walkout was scheduled over holidayThe latest strike by resident doctors in England has been “deliberately timed to cause havoc” by coinciding with hospital staff’s Easter holidays, the head of the NHS has claimed.Hospitals have struggled to find enough doctors to replace those who have refused to work during the six-day walkout, Sir Jim Mackey, the chief executive of NHS England, said. Continue reading...

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. It is the 15th resident doctors (who used to be known as junior doctors) have been on stage since they launched a campaign in 2023 to get their pay back to the equivalent level it used to be before austerity kicked in after the financial crash.This morning Wes Streeting, the health secretary, deployed a new statistic in his PR battle against the BMA, the doctors’ union organised the strikes. He confirmed a figure highlighted in the Daily Mail’s splash saying strikes by resident doctors have now cost the country £3bn.We think that strikes cost £50m a day. And so that is, an accurate reflection of the cost of these strikes.What is true is that in order to deliver a full pay restoration back to 2008 levels, using the RPI account of inflation, it would cost in the order of £3bn a year.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...

Exclusive: Health secretary says industrial action in England also threatens to derail NHS progress on waiting timesWes Streeting has accused resident doctors of “torpedoing” their own pay rises and training jobs by walking out on strike again, as tens of thousands of doctors began a six-day stoppage in England.The health secretary said there was a “legitimacy” to concerns over jobs and wages but that the British Medical Association had scuppered any chance of a breakthrough when it rejected what he said was a serious offer from the government to transform medics’ conditions. Continue reading...

Withdrawal of additional speciality training roles amid strike deadlock has left some doctors with uncertain futureAfter almost two years on the NHS frontline as a resident doctor, Heather Gunn says she is bracing herself for unemployment. Like many of her colleagues, she was desperate to secure one of the up to 4,500 additional training posts the government agreed to introduce in England over three years to help doctors progress into more specialised fields.The posts were promised in negotiations between the doctors’ union, the British Medical Association (BMA), and the government in a long-running dispute over resident doctors’ pay and job security. Continue reading...

People encouraged to ‘come forward as normal’ when BMA members begin industrial action over pay on TuesdayThe NHS is urging patients not to put off seeking the care they need when resident doctors press ahead with strike action from Tuesday, a stoppage that the health secretary has called “disappointing”.Tens of thousands of resident doctors in England are to stage a six-day strike after the government took a key part of its offer off the table. Continue reading...

Senior figures express concerns over medical union’s refusal of pay rise that is higher than offer to other NHS staffTrade unions have privately expressed qualms about the forthcoming doctors’ strikes, expressing frustration at the conduct of the talks and the demands of the British Medical Association.The BMA is pushing for a pay rise higher than the 3.5% offered to doctors by the government, with strikes planned for next week. Continue reading...