Resident doctors vote to strike ahead of Christmas

Five-day walkout comes as talks between the BMA and health secretary falter

- ALEX CROFT

Resident doctors in England will go on strike from 17 to 22 December, the British Medical Association (BMA) has announced.

The five-day strike in the run-up to Christmas comes as doctors accuse the government of failing to make “sufficient progress towards a viable deal on jobs and pay”.

In an email to doctors seen by The Independent, the BMA said it “gave [health secretary] Wes Streeting a window of opportunity to get back round the table” in a letter from 19 November.

The email read: “Today is 1 December. The secretary of state has not written to us and instead oversaw thousands of resident doctors turned away from IMT posts, all the while trying to push a real-terms pay cut onto us in 2026.”

Mr Streeting has described it as a “cynical attempt to wreck Christmas” and said the BMA has chosen to strike when it will “cause maximum disruption, causing untold anxiety”.