Wes Streeting has urged doctors to stop striking and cross picket lines “for the sake of your patients”.
Writing for The i Paper, the Health Secretary said the strike by the British Medical Association (BMA) was causing patients to be “left waiting in pain” and piling “more pressure” on overstretched NHS colleagues.
Resident doctors – formerly known as junior doctors – last week began a five-day walkout in England over pay and conditions which will run until 7am on Wednesday.
Earlier this month, Streeting offered the BMA a deal aimed at averting the strike which included covering the cost of exam fees and expanding training places faster than planned.
Offer rejected
The offer was rejected by the BMA, which argues that despite resident doctors receiving a pay rise of 28.9 per cent over the past three years, salaries remain a fifth lower than in 2008 once inflation is taken into account.
There have been some suggestions that support for the BMA’s strike action might be waning among doctors.
On Sunday, the chief executive of the NHS, Sir James Mackey, wrote to health service leaders saying that there were “some really encouraging early indications” that fewer doctors were striking than in any of the previous 12 rounds of industrial action.
And a poll last week by Savanta suggested that 48 per cent of resident doctors believed the strike should have been called off, with only 33 per cent thinking it should go ahead.
The BMA disputed the size and composition of the poll, which involved 202 resident doctors and 102 BMA members.
Plea to break strike lines
In an article for The i Paper, Streeting implored doctors to cross picket lines and come back to work: “I urge resident doctors to return to the wards, come to work to give your patients the care they need, and let’s continue rebuilding our NHS,” he said.
“I am asking you to come to work, for the sake of your patients, your colleagues, and the NHS you have committed your lives to.
“You have the power to stop this disruption, to protect the recovery underway, and to ensure your own future is shaped by your voice, not by a leadership that refused to hear it.”
It comes in the wake of Streeting angrily hitting out at an anonymous briefing suggesting he was preparing to challenge Sir Keir Starmer as Labour leader.
While the Health Secretary protested his loyalty, he is widely seen as a frontrunner for the leadership of the party after Starmer.
Delicate position
The latest wave of BMA strikes puts him in a delicate position because while it is damaging to Streeting’s mission to turnaround NHS performance, vocal attacks on the BMA could sour relations with Labour’s union supporters.
In his article, Streeting blames the BMA’s leadership for rejecting the Government’s offer and “refusing even to put it to their members”.
“I say this as someone who believes deeply in the Labour movement and its proud history of trade unionism,” he wrote.
“I cannot recall a union calling its members out on strike immediately after those members received a 28.9 per cent pay rise.”
He also warns that if the “strikes continue to their sorry conclusion, costing around £240m”, the Government “simply will not be able to afford” to make the BMA the same offer as at the start of this month.
The BMA were contacted for comment.
By Wes Streeting, Secertary of State for Health and Care
At moments like this, when the NHS is straining every sinew to care for patients, it is impossible not to feel frustration – and deep concern – about the path the British Medical Association (BMA) leadership has chosen.
Calling resident doctors out on strike is reckless, self-defeating, and seemingly blind to the consequences for patients and staff as winter pressures ramp up. And early signs show that fewer resident doctors are striking than in previous rounds of strikes.
I spend enough time in hospitals, GP surgeries, and community clinics to know what staff and patients are going through.
No one feels these pressures more than the resident doctors working gruelling shifts on the frontline.
And that is precisely why the current strike action feels so needless, so avoidable, and so damaging.
A new poll shows a significant majority of resident doctors do not support this five-day walkout.
When asked about the Government’s latest offer, far more said the strikes should be called off than continue.
It tells us something important: resident doctors themselves were denied a voice and the majority never wanted strike action in the first place.
For months, doctors have told me the same things: they want security, fairness, better training, more time with patients, and an NHS that doesn’t burn them out.
These are the very priorities reflected in the package the Government put forward: a package that frontline resident doctors overwhelmingly welcomed and that clearly could have ended these strikes.
Yet the BMA leadership rejected it outright, within hours, refusing even to put it to their members.
I say this as someone who believes deeply in the Labour movement and its proud history of trade unionism.
I cannot recall a union calling its members out on strike immediately after those members received a 28.9% pay rise.
If these strikes continue to their sorry conclusion, costing around £240m, we simply will not be able to afford the same offer again.
That is why my message to the BMA is simple: call off the strikes, listen to your members, and let resident doctors decide their own future.
For now, as we enter this needless round of industrial action, patients should feel reassured the NHS is more practiced than ever in minimising disruption.
Make no mistake, it will require a herculean effort from the entire breadth of staff across the NHS, but there is no doubt these strikes will cause disruption for patients and staff will be picking up the pieces.
The fault for this lies squarely with the BMA, who refused to put the Government’s offer to its members.
I urge resident doctors to return to the wards, come to work to give your patients the care they need, and let’s continue rebuilding our NHS.
Because every cancelled operation is a person left waiting in pain.
Every delayed scan is a family living with fear for longer than they should.
Every shift left short-staffed piles yet more pressure on colleagues already carrying the weight of a system under strain.
None of this is abstract.
These are people, frightened, unwell, vulnerable, and they are the ones who feel the consequences first.
And this disruption comes at the very moment when the NHS is beginning to recover.
Waiting lists are falling for the first time in 15 years.
Ambulance response times are improving.
GP satisfaction is rising.
Our new diagnostic centres and surgical hubs are delivering faster care for thousands.
We are finally turning a corner.
To every patient whose care is delayed: I am sorry. You deserve better.
And to every striking resident doctor: I am asking you to come to work, for the sake of your patients, your colleagues, and the NHS you have committed your lives to.
You have the power to stop this disruption, to protect the recovery underway, and to ensure your own future is shaped by your voice, not by a leadership that refused to hear it.
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