Junior doctors will join their consultant colleagues in the first-ever joint strikes on four days this autumn in an ongoing dispute over pay, the British Medical Association (BMA) union announced on Thursday.
“Christmas Day” level of staffing will be maintained on the strike days for emergency care.
Three of the four days are selected to target the annual Conservative Party Conference in a bid to pile pressure on ministers.
It comes after the BMA’s junior doctor members voted overwhelmingly to continue industrial action in the next six months.
The union insisted that the government must return to the negotiation table, with Rob Laurenson and Vivek Trivedi, co-chairs of the junior doctor committee, telling Prime Minister Rishi Sunak he has “nowhere to hide.”
Health Secretary Steve Barclay said the government’s 6 percent pay offer is “final,” urging the union to “call an end to this callous and calculated disruption.”
Sir Julian Harley, chief executive at NHS Providers, said the “serious escalation” will pose “an unprecedented challenge for the health service,” calling for both sides of the dispute to negotiate a resolution.
According to NHS England, as of Aug. 23, some 839,327 hospital appointments across the NHS had been affected during strikes by doctors, nurses, and other NHS staff since last December.
New Mandate
It was previously announced that consultants would take industrial actions between Sept. 19 and Sept. 20 and between Oct. 2 and Oct. 4 while the BMA was legally required to re-ballot junior doctors on whether or not they wanted to stay in dispute for another six months.The Conservative Party Conference will be held in Manchester between Oct. 1 and Oct. 4.
The BMA said on Thursday that 43,340 doctors, or 98 percent of those who voted, were in favour of continuing industrial action. with a turnout of 71 percent, meaning junior doctors can walk out on more dates by Feb. 29, 2024.
The union announced six new strike dates for junior doctors, who will join consultants on Sept. 20 on the first day of their three-day walkout, and coordinate with consultants again between Oct. 1 and Oct. 4.
What Do the Doctors Want
The BMA said both junior doctors and consultants have seen their salaries falling “by more than a third in real terms over the past 15 years” while the NHS is “hugely understaffed and under-resourced.”Junior doctors are demanding a “full pay restoration,” calling on ministers to draw up a plan to restore their pay to the 2008 level in real terms over the coming years.
Consultants, who earn an average £143,100 a year before tax, are not demanding a 35 percent pay rise, but they are seeking an “above inflationary pay award for 2023-24” and an overhaul of the pay review body for Doctors’ and Dentists,’ which the union has accused of being “broken and rigged.”
Announcing new strike dates on Thursday, Rob Laurenson and Vivek Trivedi, co-chairs of the BMA’s junior doctor committee, said the new vote sent a “ loud and clear” message to the government that junior doctors “are not going anywhere.”
Vishal Sharma, chair of the BMA consultants committee, said ministers “must act to address our pay erosion so that the NHS is able to train the doctors that we currently have, and to ensure that we have enough consultants to train the doctors of the future.”
No Negotiation on Pay
Writing on X, previously known as Twitter, the health secretary said the BMA’s announcement was “extremely disappointing.”“I know it will weigh heavily on the minds of their NHS colleagues and patients—both of whom are shouldering the brunt of the BMA’s relentless and now co-ordinated strike action,” Mr. Barclay wrote on Thursday.
He said the tiered pay raise means new trainee doctors will receive a 10.3 percent pay increase, which the average junior doctor set to get 8.8 percent more pay.
“My door is always open to discuss how we can work together with NHS staff to improve their working lives. But this pay award is final, so I urge the BMA to call an end to this callous and calculated disruption,” he said.
