England’s junior doctors will go on strike for the third time this year after talks with the government broke down yesterday. The industrial action will last 72 hours, taking place between 14 and 17 June.
So far, BMA members have staged two walkouts, one for three days and another for four. In the last strike, which lasted 96 hours, just under 200,000 routine appointments and procedures were cancelled. With a record 7.3 million people on NHS waiting lists, the health service does not have the capacity to deal with staff walkouts. But the BMA has been frank with the government: the union has said it will continue strike action for at least three days a month until their legal mandate runs out in late August, before which time they will have to ballot their members again.
Medics in England are calling for full pay restoration of 35 per cent. This figure, according to the BMA, is the sum of the 26 per cent pay cut they have seen in real terms since 2008, plus inflation. At present, health secretary Steve Barclay has offered England’s junior doctors a pay rise of 5 per cent, which has been snubbed as ‘not credible’ by the doctors’ union. The co-chairs of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, Dr Vivek Trivedi and Dr Robert Laurenson, say that over the last three weeks they have held talks with the health secretary in an attempt to avoid further strike action, which collapsed yesterday after Barclay reportedly refused to restore junior doctors’ pay to 2008 levels.
Commenting, Trivedi and Laurenson said:
‘In the end, the government would simply not accept the fundamental reality of the pay cuts junior doctors have faced. This was made clear when they finally made their pay offer of 5 per cent. Not only is that nowhere near addressing pay erosion over the last 15 years, it would not even have matched inflation this year.’
Retorting, the government has slammed the BMA for refusing to compromise. Its spokesperson said it was ‘surprising and deeply disappointing’ that the BMA had announced further industrial action while ‘constructive’ talks were continuing. ‘Unfortunately, it seems the BMA is unwilling to move meaningfully away from their unaffordable headline demands on pay.’ And the government has since said that while another meeting was planned with the BMA tomorrow, Barclay will only engage if this third round of strike action is called off.
The health secretary faces trouble on a number of fronts as the BMA has begun balloting senior doctors (consultants) on taking strike action over pay and pension disputes. The Royal College of Nursing has today started balloting its members for a second time to secure a mandate for another six months of industrial action. It’s a tough old time for NHS workers — and Steve Barclay really does have his work cut out for him if he truly wants to keep the health service afloat.
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