Junior doctors have announced strike dates, saying they have no choice but to walk out for 72 hours from 13 to 16 March after health secretary Steve Barclay’s continued failure to negotiate.
Nearly 40,000 junior doctors in England, members of the British Medical Association, voted to take industrial action in the recent ballot and NHS trusts and employers have now been notified that the 72-hour walk-out will go ahead.
The junior doctors’ strike will begin at 7am on Monday 13 March but any physician who has already started their shift will be expected to finish it and hand over in the normal way. Action will end at 6.59am on Thursday 16 March, before which any junior doctors starting a shift will not be expected to attend.
The BMA said that junior doctors called upon Barclay twice in the past week to meet with them urgently, but so far no date was forthcoming. A meeting with Department of Health civil servants earlier this week made no “meaningful progress”.
Dr Rob Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chairs of the BMA junior doctors’ committee, said: “Make no mistake, this strike was absolutely in the government’s gift to avert; they know it, we know it and our patients also need to know it. We have tried, since last summer, to get each health secretary we have had, around the negotiating table.
“We have written many times and even as late as yesterday we were hopeful Steve Barclay would recognise the need to meet with us to find a workable solution that could have averted this strike. We have not been told why we have not been offered intensive negotiations nor what we need to do for the government to begin negotiations with us. We are left with no option but to proceed with this action.”
Junior doctors strike
Last week, when the result of the BMA ballot was announced, Barclay said: “We hugely value the work of junior doctors and it is deeply disappointing some union members have voted for strike action.”
Almost 37,000 votes were cast and 98% of those voted in favour of strike. The turnout, at 77%, means it was the largest-ever ballot of doctors organised by the BMA.
The doctors’ union say that successive governments have overseen 15 years of real-terms pay cuts for junior doctors in England, which amounts to a 26.1% decline in pay since 2008-09.
The government excluded junior doctors in England – any hospital clinician with up to eight years’ fully-qualified service – from the pay award process this year because their contracts are subject to a multi-year pay deal which awards them a 2% increase for 2022-23. The UK has recorded double-digit inflation since August 2022.
A junior doctors’ strike date has already been set for 15 March by the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “The fact that these strikes will go ahead and span three full days in March will deal a significant blow to the health service and will inevitably drive up the demand for services even further.
“Whilst NHS leaders have sympathy for junior doctors and understand their concerns, this industrial action will help to fuel the very demand that is making their working conditions so difficult, at a time when the health service has been making important inroads in bringing down the waiting list backlog.
We are demoralised, angry and no longer willing to work for wages that have seen a real terms decline of over 26% in the past 15 years“ – BMA
Junior doctors are a crucial part of the NHS workforce and their decision to strike will, without question, have a major impact on the services patients will be able to access, over what will no doubt be a very long 72 hours.
“Health leaders will continue to do all they can to mitigate against the effects of this latest round of industrial action on the patients they care for, and will hope that in working with consultants and SAS doctors they can ensure adequate medical cover.”
He added that when junior doctors last went on strike, nearly 300,000 outpatient appointments were cancelled.
Laurenson and Trivedi said: “The fact that so many junior doctors in England have voted yes for strike action should leave Ministers in absolutely no doubt what we have known for a long time and have been trying to tell them, we are demoralised, angry and no longer willing to work for wages that have seen a real terms decline of over 26% in the past 15 years. This, together with the stress and exhaustion of working in an NHS in crisis, has brought us to this moment, brought us to a 72-hour walk-out.
“How in all conscience, can the health secretary continue to put his head in the sand and hope that by not meeting with us, this crisis of his government’s making, will somehow just disappear? It won’t, and patients and the public will continue to feel the brunt of his inaction until he starts to negotiate with us and we agree a deal that truly values junior doctors and pays us what we are worth.”
Miriam Deakin, director of policy and strategy at NHS Providers, said: “We understand junior doctors feel they’ve been pushed to this point by factors including below-inflation pay uplifts and the vast workforce shortages. As ever, trust leaders will be working flat out to ensure disruption is minimised on strike dates, but they desperately need action on a national level to bring this to an end.
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“We’re encouraged by the government opening talks with the Royal College of Nursing on pay, but it’s clear these negotiations need to take place immediately and with all other striking unions.”
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