Junior doctors in England will strike today for an 11th time over pay, amid fears within their union that the stoppage so close to the general election was an “own goal”.
Senior figures at the British Medical Association (BMA) said the strike was pointless and “naive” and risked upsetting Labour, which looks likely to be in power until next Friday, and called on the union to call it off.
Around 25,000 junior doctors are expected to refuse to work during the five-day stoppage, which starts at 7am today and continues until the same time next Tuesday, July 2.
By the end of it, junior doctors will have been on strike for 44 days since they first took strike action in March 2023 in pursuit of a 35% pay rise.
The previous 10 strikes have forced NHS to cancel 1.4 million outpatient appointments and operations and spend £1.7 billion to minimize disruption.
NHS England expects the “widespread disruption to care” over the next five days to be worse than before as heat-related health problems increase the strain on many services. “This new round of strike action will once again hit the NHS very hard,” said Prof Stephen Powis, its national medical director.
However, registrars – junior doctors just below consultant level – will continue to provide cancer care at London hospitals affected by the Russian cyberattack after the BMA agreed to a request from NHS England to grant them exemptions to do so.
But members of the BMA governing council said the latest strike would achieve nothing but cause further problems for hospitals already under pressure.
One said: “I and none of the doctors I work with can understand what the strike hopes to achieve. There is no government to negotiate with. And the opposition health minister announced it would be his first priority in office to correct it and called [junior doctors] to cancel it.
“Furthermore, being willing to sacrifice five days’ salary for no tangible gain is not necessarily a good fit for a group of doctors looking for a 35% pay rise to be able to afford their basic bills.”
A second councilor said: “There is a lot of concern about the strike just before the election and the support [for juniors’ strikes among consultants and GPs] decreases.”
Junior doctors will picket hospitals across England today, including in London, Birmingham, Nottingham and Liverpool. They will also protest outside the Friarage Hospital in North Yorkshire, which is close to the Prime Minister’s office in the Richmond constituency.
They will hold a rally outside Downing Street this afternoon.
Junior doctors are chasing a 35% pay rise to act as “full pay recovery” for the 26.2% fall in the value of their earnings they have seen since 2008-09.
Leaders of the BLA’s Junior Doctors Committee (JDC) said today they could call further strikes this summer if the next government does not hold talks “in time”.
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However, they have stressed in recent months that they would welcome any significant progress towards their goal of “full pay recovery” to be phased in over several years. This raised tentative hopes that the long-running and highly destructive dispute might soon end.
Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said the pay rise for junior doctors should be “a journey, not an event”. He also said he would not approve a 35% increase because if he did, “any union worth its salt” would demand the same amount for its members.
Dr Robert Lawrenson, co-chair of the JDC, said: “He talks about things like ‘a journey, not an event’. We are happy to have a multi-year pay deal. He seems to have heard that and ‘journey not event’ fits it.’
Dr Vivek Trivedi, the other co-chair, said: “The main thing I took away from the discussions [with Labour] is that he is willing to try and at least engage in a constructive and meaningful way [talks]”.
He added: “If negotiations do not move forward in time, then of course our members will expect us to call for strike action.”
But influential figures at the BMA say that privately many consultants and GPs sympathize with their junior colleagues’ desire to secure a pay rise, but feel they have been wrong to strike so often and not gain any obvious ground as a result.
A senior figure said: “They had to call off the strike this week because strategically it’s the wrong decision – like an own goal – because a new government is coming in and they’ve indicated they’d like us to call it off.
“They should call off this strike, agree to meet the new ministerial team and see if they can salvage a deal, although not for 35%.” Given the state of NHS finances, there has to be a give and take.’
