Junior doctors striking over pay rise ‘unfair to patients’

Health leaders criticise action as operations to be cancelled

- REBECCA THOMAS JABED AHMED

Patients are facing tens of thousands of operations and appointments being cancelled at the last minute after doctors announced a five-day walkout in an escalating row over pay.

The doctors have voted in favour of strike action that could last for months (PA) Health secretary Wes Streeting accused union leaders of threatening the NHS recovery, warning the health service was “hanging by a thread”.

Resident doctors have said they will strike on 25 July for five days, following a ballot held by the British Medical Association (BMA), as part of demands to secure a 29 per cent pay rise.

Health leaders have warned that strike action with just two weeks’ notice is “totally unfair to patients whose care will be cancelled at such short notice, just as the NHS was beginning to turn the tide on reducing waiting lists”.

Resident doctors, formally called junior doctors, want a 29.8 per cent pay rise, claiming this would address the erosion of their pay since 2008-09. Last year, they accepted a 22.3 per cent pay uplift over two years from April 2023, but they are angry with this year’s offer of a 5.4 per cent raise.