A Consultant's View: BMA Is Selling a Fantasy by Saying Patients Won't Suffer

It is hard to believe that yet again, we are going into industrial action by our resident doctors.

- The Secret Consultant

It has only been a year since the last round of strikes. And the length of this strike—five days, at two weeks' notice, over the summer when people are away—is clearly designed to send a message.

Consultants were, by and large, quietly supportive of previous strikes. There is a general recognition that new residents have it harder than we did in many ways. There is more financial hardship than there used to be; their salaries don't go as far as ours used to when we were training, and they have amassed much more student debt. They continue to have to pay many thousands of pounds in General Medical Council registration and compulsory conference and examination fees which are nowhere near covered by their shrinking study budgets. Thus, most consultants were very pleased when residents received their 22% pay award last year. It felt like a step in the right direction.