Junior doctors in England have announced a five-day strike in the lead up to the general election.
Members of the British Medical Association will walk out from 7:00am on Thursday 27 June until 7:00am on Tuesday 2 July. The general election takes place on 4 July.
The strikes continue a long-running pay dispute between junior doctors and the government. The BMA is seeking a 35% pay rise to make up for real-terms pay cuts over the past 15 years.
This will be the 11th strike by junior doctors since March 2023. The last one took place at the end of February.
BMA junior doctors committee co-chairs Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said: “For more than 18 months we have been asking Rishi Sunak to put forward proposals to restore the pay junior doctors have lost over the past 15 years – equal to more than a quarter in real terms.
Junior doctors strikes
“When we entered mediation with the government this month we did so under the impression that we had a functioning government that would soon be making an offer.
“Clearly no offer is now forthcoming. Junior doctors are fed up and out of patience.
“Even at this late stage, Mr Sunak has the opportunity to show that he cares about the NHS and its workers.
“It is finally time for him to make a concrete commitment to restore doctors’ pay. If during this campaign he makes such a public commitment that is acceptable to the BMA’s junior doctors committee, then no strikes need go ahead.”
Junior doctors received a pay rise averaging nearly 9% in the last financial year.
Strikes in the NHS are estimated to have cost the service more than £1.5bn. Walkouts by doctors, nurses, paramedics and physiotherapists have led to 1.3 million health interventions being rescheduled or cancelled.
The BMA has not limited its criticism to the current government, however.
In its response to Labour’s plans to cut backlogs to NHS services, the organisation said: “It will take more than a few new scanners to deliver this promise, and much more engagement with, and recognition of, staff who are leaving the NHS due to poor pay, conditions and exhaustion”.
It also pressed Labour to clarify what it would do about senior doctors being prevented from taking on extra NHS shifts due to “persistently punitive and complex” pension taxation rules, and how it would address pay levels in the service.
“There’s still no assurance that doctors wouldn’t be punished if a Labour government reinstates the pension lifetime allowance – risking an exodus of our most senior clinicians who are so critical to reducing waiting lists,” said Professor Philip Banfield, BMA council chair.
“The elephant in the room remains pay for the expertise of doctors needed to clear these waiting lists.
“Just as Labour state they cleared waiting lists before, this was a time when doctors were properly valued for the work they did. Without restoring this pay – and most urgently resolving the dispute with junior doctors – doctors will continue to leave and any promises to solve the backlog will fall at the first hurdle.”
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Junior doctor members of the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association are currently voting in a ballot to extend their strike mandate until December 2024. If they vote in favour, they could join their colleagues in the BMA as they have done during previous action. The ballot closes on 4 June.
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