Latest news with #EmmaRunswick
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Doctors' leader boasts of 'left-wing' views while demanding 29% pay hike as NHS faces cancelling thousands of ops due to FIVE DAYS of strikes
A 'leftwing' doctor's leader warned only emergency care would be covered if medics walk out on strike for five days next week, putting thousands of routine operations at risk. Dr Emma Runswick, deputy chairwoman of the British Medical Association, said that resident doctors were not seeking to 'bring the NHS to its knees' with their latest walk-out in search of an eye-watering 29 per cent pay rise. But she admitted that only emergency and maternity care would continue if they go ahead with five consecutive days of strikes starting at 7am on July 25. Health Secretary Wes Streeting will meet BMA representatives this week for talks in an effort to avoid industrial action - having told doctors they cannot have more money. Ministers and distinguished medics have criticsed the decision, coming at a time when billions is being ploughed into the NHS in a bid to clear backlogs and improve patient care. IVF pioneer, Professor Robert Winston, resigned from the BMA last week, saying the strike could cause 'long-term damage' to people's faith in doctors. Appearing on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Dr Runswick was asked is she was a 'militant leftie'. 'Oh yeah I am leftwing but that doesn't necessarily reflect the variety of views that that doctors have,' she said. She also complained that some specialist residents were only being paid £34 per hour, adding: 'You would pay a plumber more.' Mr Streeting is reportedly sympathetic to improving working conditions for doctors, but will not budge on salaries. Reacting to the BMA announcement last Wednesday, Mr Streeting called the move 'completely unreasonable' and urged the union to 'abandon their rush to strike', while health chiefs warned strikes are 'unfair to patients'. Mr Streeting told the Commons on Thursday: 'We have put the NHS on the road to recovery, but we all know that the NHS is still hanging by a thread, and that the BMA is threatening to pull it.' Lord Winston quit his membership following the strike announcement, writing in The Times: 'I've paid my membership for a long time. I feel very strongly that this isn't the time to be striking. 'I think that the country is really struggling in all sorts of ways, people are struggling in all sorts of ways. 'Strike action completely ignores the vulnerability of people in front of you.' A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said: 'The BMA have accepted the Health Secretary's offer to meet and we expect that to happen this week.' Some 90 per cent of voting resident doctors backed the strike action, with the BMA reporting a turnout of 55 per cent. The union has said that resident doctors need a pay uplift of 29.2 per cent to reverse 'pay erosion' since 2008-09. In September, BMA members voted to accept a government pay deal worth 22.3 per cent on average over two years. The 2025-26 pay deal saw resident doctors given a 4 per cent uplift plus £750 'on a consolidated basis' – working out as an average pay rise of 5.4 per cent. The BMA call for a 29.2 per cent uplift is based on Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation, the measure of average changes in the price of goods and services used by most households. Mr Streeting has said that the 'majority' of BMA resident doctors – formerly known as junior doctors – did not vote to strike and has called the forthcoming action 'completely unreasonable'. However Labour has also been accused of crying 'crocodile tears' - as it prepares to make walkouts even easier. Angela Rayner 's radical workers' rights Bill will soon scrap the 50 per cent turnout threshold which unions must meet to hold legal strike action. Last night Conservative business spokesman Andrew Griffith told the Mail the Government's comments were 'totally hypocritical'. He said: 'The unions are already licking their lips at the Employment Bill, which will unleash waves of low threshold strikes. By reducing the turnout required to trigger a strike, Labour are guaranteeing even more strikes. They are effectively giving unions the whip hand at the worst possible time.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Resident doctors deserve real-terms pay rise after working through Covid, says BMA
The BMA has defended resident doctors' pay claim ahead of talks with the health secretary, saying they did not work through the Covid pandemic only to end up with a real-terms pay cut. Wes Streeting is due to meet British Medical Association (BMA) representatives this week as he looks to avert five days of strikes in England due to start on 25 July. Doctors voted to take the action in pursuit of a 29% pay rise which the BMA has said is needed to replace what they have lost over years of cuts. 'We are still down compared to even the pandemic in 2020,' Emma Runswick, a resident doctor in Greater Manchester and deputy chair of the BMA council, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Monday. She said doctors' 'reward' for working to get the country through Covid was a 'real-terms pay cut' – suggesting this was not the treatment they had expected during the days when people lined their streets to clap for health workers. Runswick was asked why the BMA had chosen to base its pay claim on the retail prices index (RPI) – a measure of inflation the Office for National Statistics no longer considers official – rather than the consumer price inflation (CPI), which is official and tends to be lower. She told the programme the government still uses RPI 'when it suits them' – including for calculating how much people's train fares, car-related taxes and the rates paid on debts such as student loans – increase by each year. Therefore, she suggested, it was fair to take into account the effects of those on resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, when determining their pay claim. Speaking to the Guardian last week, the BMA's new chair, Tom Dolphin, said the union would not negotiate on the figure, which simply restored doctors' losses since 2008, rather than increasing their pay. He blamed the five-day strike on Streeting agreeing to a 22% pay rise over two years last year, but not following it up with an award this year to take account of the 29% claim. 'Our expectation was that the [22%] would be the start of a journey that would keep us going until we'd reached the value we had in 2008. So, clearly, the return of value has stopped and now it's just marching on the spot. And we need to carry on that journey. It [29%] is reasonable because it's based on the loss of value that we've had. The number is this big because [previous] governments serially ignored the BMA when we said this is building up a problem.' Asked if unions such as the BMA and Royal College of Nursing would be handed whatever pay rises they wanted, the chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, said: 'No, because – of course – public sector pay has to be affordable in the context of the broader economy. That's why we need to make sure that we have a strong and resilient economy that is growing in order to have the tax receipts to pay for our public services. Public sector workers know that.' When Labour entered government, Jones said, the Conservative administration 'weren't even talking to public sector workers'. He added: 'We've reset that relationship. We've honoured pay review body recommendations, which are an independent process in line with our affordability guidelines. And we have to be clear with the pay review bodies and public sector workers what is and isn't affordable, which is what we've done.'
