Doctors' strikes 'could last more than six months' as first NHS walkout ends
Striking doctors have suggested walkouts could go on for more than six months if Wes Streeting does not make them an improved offer.
Strike leaders staged a picket line at the Health Secretary's local hospital on the final day of a five-day strike. Resident doctors in the British Medical Association have voted to secure a legal mandate to strike until January 2026.
The BMA's resident doctors committee co-chair Dr Ross Nieuwoudt was asked outside King George Hospital in Ilford, east London, whether strikes could go on after then into next year. He replied: "We are incredibly hopeful that Wes Streeting and the Government at large see sense and come to talk to us now so that doesn't even have to be a consideration. That would require a new ballot but we're hoping it doesn't have to get there at all.
"All Wes Streeting needs to do is talk to us now; the door is open. That is the best-case scenario... for him to come and talk to us and resolve this dispute."
The British Medical Association is holding out for a full return to 2008 levels of pay, arguing that by the Retail Price Index Measure of inflation their real terms salaries are down a fifth since then.
Mr Streeting said last week that the BMA's resident doctors committee co-chairs had 'seriously underestimated me' after they ended last ditch talks to avert the strike. The Government has refused to budge on the headline pay rise of 5.4% - pointing out it is an above inflation deal for the second year running - but had been negotiating on other issues such as the cost of training.
Speaking from the picket line no Tuesday, Dr Shivam Sharma, resident doctor in north London, said: 'We've had our pay cut by over a fifth but we don't see fewer patients, we don't do less work, in fact our work has become harder. What we're asking for is for a doctor who 's paid just over £18 an hour to be paid just over £22 an hour.
'We're not asking for this money in one go. We're asking for it over a number of years… So please Mr Streeting… do the right thing by everyone.'
The BMA would not be drawn on whether and how quickly it will start planning more strikes. Its resident doctors committee co-chair Dr Melissa Ryan said: "There doesn't need to be a single day of strike action. Wes Streeting knows what he has to do. If he wants to resolve the dispute, he has to contact us and present a credible offer.
"We do have a mandate that is going all the way into January but... it's a damn shame we have to do a single day of strike action and Mr Streeting can prevent that."
NHS officials have pledged that cancelled bookings would be rescheduled within two weeks but warned of knock-on impacts for other patients.
Dr Layla McCay, director of policy at NHS Confederation, said: "Resident doctors have recently had a very substantial increase in their pay and the Government has been pretty clear that at the moment, there isn't more money to be negotiated. Clearly the Government is quite keen to have those discussions about other non-pay factors, like workforce conditions.
"I think that the hope of all healthcare leaders is that the BMA will get around the table with the Government and figure out a solution to this, because what absolutely nobody wants to see is any further cases of industrial action after this one."
The BMA has also launched a "linked dispute" with the Government over a lack of places for doctors in training. The union said that this year there were more than 30,000 resident doctors applying for just 10,000 specialty training places.
A poll by the union, conducted on 4,400 doctors over the last week, found that 52% of resident doctors completing their second year of training - when they enter specialty training - do not have substantive employment lined up from August.
In a joint statement, co-chairs Dr Ross Nieuwoudt and Dr Melissa Ryan said: 'With more than six million patients on waiting lists in England, it's maddening that a third of resident doctors say they cannot get a job. Across the NHS, this means potentially thousands of UK doctors are left in employment limbo when patients desperately need their care.
'Commitments from the Government to address this don't go far enough or are too vague to convince us that they understand the gravity of the situation, so we're making clear that, alongside pay, we are entering a dispute and demanding action so that no UK-trained, capable, doctor is left underemployed in the NHS.'
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