Doctors' strikes With BMA and Streeting poles apart, pay row has no end in sight

As resident doctors began a new round of industrial action yesterday, it felt very like the other 49 days of strikes since March 2023, with medics on picket lines outside hospitals across England in a battle for public sympathy.

- Denis Campbell Health policy editor

The British Medical Association claimed the stoppage was wholly justified, while the health secretary, Wes Streeting, said it was irresponsible and risky.

Many thousands of patients had their appointments or surgery cancelled as hospitals tried to minimise the disruption. They are collateral damage, as usual.

It is now one of the longest disputes in NHS history. The UK is on its fourth prime minister since the BMA decided at its annual conference in June 2022 that resident at the time still called junior - doctors in England deserved "full pay restoration".

Boris Johnson fell a month later.

Since then Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have grappled with the union's demand, which seeks to return resident doctors' pay to 2008 levels, before austerityera low annual rises and inflation eroded the real-terms value of their salaries. There are 70,000 such medics, who range from the newly qualified to those about to become a consultant. About 60,000 are in the BMA.

The union initially sought a 35% increase in resident doctors' salaries. Before this latest stoppage they had struck 12 times, for a total of 49 days, 11 of them under the Conservatives. That has led to about 1.5m outpatient appointments and surgeries being rescheduled.

Their campaign has borne fruit.

Pay has risen 28.9% over the past three years, including by 22% under Labour. But stubbornly high inflation means that a further 26% uplift is needed to achieve "full pay restoration", the union says.

This 13th strike will continue until 7am on Wednesday. Talking to BMA insiders, it emerged that the roots of the dispute owe almost as much to the internal politics of the doctors' union as to the fact that government policy has made medics poorer over time.