Thousands of UK doctors have launched a five-day strike after talks with the Labour government for a new pay increase failed to reach a deal. The doctors were out on picket lines outside hospitals, protesting the government’s refusal to meet their demands for a significant pay rise.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer appealed to the doctors, saying patients were being put at risk and the strikes would “cause real damage”. Launching a strike “will mean everyone loses,” Starmer wrote in the Times, highlighting the added strain it would put on the already struggling National Health Service (NHS). He appealed to the doctors not to “follow” their union, the British Medical Association (BMA), “down this damaging road. Our NHS and your patients need you”. “Lives will be blighted by this decision,” Starmer warned.
The junior doctors have said their pay in real terms has eroded more than 21 percent over the past two decades. “We’re not working 21 percent less hard so why should our pay suffer?” said Melissa Ryan and Ross Nieuwoudt, co-chairs of the BMA’s resident doctors committee, in a statement. The BMA is demanding a significant pay rise to reverse the “pay erosion” since 2008.
The doctors had accepted a pay rise offer totaling 22.3 percent over two years in September, soon after Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour party took power. However, they felt they had “no choice” but to strike again to get a better deal. The previous Conservative government resisted the BMA’s demands for a 35-percent “pay restoration” to reflect real-term inflation over the last decade.
Health Minister Wes Streeting also appealed to doctors to reverse their position, saying in a letter published in The Telegraph that the government “cannot afford to go further on pay this year”. The government has offered a 5.4 percent pay rise, which the BMA argues does little to address real-terms salary cuts accumulated over more than a decade.
The strike has sparked concerns about the impact on the NHS, which is already struggling with staffing shortages and long wait times. Public support for the strikes has dipped, with 52 percent of respondents opposing the action in a recent poll.
The strike is expected to cause significant disruptions to hospital services, with tens of thousands of appointments and treatments potentially being cancelled or delayed. The BMA argues that the strike is not just about pay but about getting the government to listen to the state of the NHS and address the underlying issues affecting the healthcare system.