Junior doctors and Seniors in England will strike together for the first time in the history of the NHS on September 20, October 2, 3, and 4, in a dramatic escalation of their bitter pay dispute with the government.
Junior doctors on a picket line outside University College hospital in London-Image Source: The Guardian
The British Medical Association (BMA) blamed ministers’ refusal to negotiate over doctors’ salaries for the union’s decision to organise stoppages involving both groups of medics.
The joint action will reduce hospitals and other services in England to providing Christmas Day levels of care.
Hospital bosses warned that the coordinated strikes would pose “an unprecedented challenge” for the NHS. It has suffered serious disruption because of strikes by nurses, ambulance staff and other staff, and then doctors, that began last December.
That action has already forced the NHS to cancel almost 1m appointments and operations. It has cost the health service about £1bn in having to pay staff to fill gaps in rotas and lost income for surgeries that hospitals have not been able to do on strike days.
The BMA announced the joint stoppages when it unveiled the results of a second ballot of junior doctors in which 98.4% of those who took part voted to keep on striking for another six months, until early 2024. Seniors intend to continue holding strikes in their own right too. The turnout was 71%, which meant the doctors’ union easily met the 50% threshold under trade union law.
The BMA on Thursday called on Chancellor Rishi Sunak to step in and ensure that Health Secretary Steve Barclay made junior doctors “a credible offer” that would allow talks to begin to reach an agreed settlement.
Dr Rob Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, the joint chairs of its junior doctors committee, warned Sunak and Barclay that their members would keep on striking until spring 2025 if need be.
“Rishi Sunak now has nowhere to hide. There can be no more delaying, no more wasting time with impositions of pay deals, no more declarations that strikes must end before even stepping in the room with us. If he does not come to the table with a credible offer on pay, he will face another six months of strike action.
“And another six months after, and after that, if he continues to ignore us. He knows the stakes, he knows our ask, and now he knows our resolve.
“The prime minister faces a profession united in its determination to address pay erosion. Seniors and junior doctors stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity after months of facing the same inflexibility from government,” they said.
