Streeting will meet doctors in effort to stop five-day strike

Wes Streeting will meet officials of the British Medical Association this week in an attempt to avert five days of strikes by resident doctors.

- Denis Campbell Kiran Stacey

The health secretary has described the planned industrial action, which relates to pay, as "completely unreasonable".

The government has offered resident doctors - formerly known as junior doctors - a 5.4% pay rise this year after the 22% rise that was agreed for the previous two years.

But the proposal has been rejected by doctors, who have suffered from years of below-inflation pay rises that have left real-terms salaries far behind where they were in 2008.

The co-chairs of the BMA resident doctors committee, Ross Nieuwoudt and Melissa Ryan, said in a joint statement they were "happy to continue discussions to find a solution".

They added: "We are glad that the secretary of state has taken us up on our offer and we look forward to constructive discussions, in the hope that we can make progress that would be sufficient to support suspending the planned strike."

Polling evidence suggests that public support for the strikes has collapsed. A new survey shows they are backed by just 26% of voters, compared with 52% a year ago.

The fall may be linked to the 22% salary rise that resident doctors in England received from the Labour government soon after it took power last July. They now want another 29% - spread over several years.