Dear oh dear. Those pesky junior doctors strike again — literally. The fifth round of industrial action started this morning and will last until 7am on Tuesday. Junior doctors in England are demanding full pay restoration of 35 per cent – which they say accounts for a 26 per cent real terms pay cut plus inflation.
The co-leader of the BMA junior doctors committee appeared on the Today programme this morning to defend the strikes – and his frustration came over loud and clear on the airwaves. The only people who are perhaps more frustrated, Mr S muses, are the poor patients unable to see their doctors because they’re all on the picket line…
On the show, Dr Rob Laurenson slated the UK government for arranging ‘pointless’ and ‘irrelevant’ meetings about ‘non-pay related issues’. He then turned on them for playing ‘ideological’ games with the BMA. But when quizzed on whether he would urge members to accept a pay deal like that offered in Scotland – where doctors will receive a 12.4 per cent rise this year with inflationary pay rises for the next three – he said no, explaining that:
The governments are very different. [With] the Scottish government, there’s a basis… to have a working relationship to negotiate in the future. The government that [the UK] has today is hellbent on using the rigged independent pay review bodies…
It sounds a little like Laurenson is caught up in a bit of ideological warfare himself. Pot, kettle, black? Pressed on this by Justin Webb, who asked what patients waiting for treatment would make of this ideological position, Laurenson replied:
I think what’s ideological is the government cutting our pay for 15 consecutive years which is driving doctors away. We’re trying to fix a massive workforce crisis. That’s our ideology. To try and actually fix the issues that we have while delivering high-quality care to the people of this country. I think that’s a good ideology to have.
So that would be yes, then. Although Mr S wonders if there is much room for self-awareness here, given delivering ‘high-quality care’ surely involves actually turning up to work…
Listen to the exchange here:
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