Public is losing patience with striking doctors

Taken literally, the British Medical Association's demand for resident doctors' pay to be restored to 2008 levels would require an immediate 26 per cent rise, at a cost to the Treasury of some £700m.

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It must hurriedly be added that this real-term “pay restoration” would be on top of the 28.9 per cent uplift agreed last year by the incoming Labour government.

Another far-above-inflation award is likely to be viewed by most people with a mixture of envy, bewilderment and disbelief - if not actual anger. Given that the doctors’ latest strike over pay coincides with a flu epidemic and is adding to already unbearable pressure on the NHS, the BMA is pushing its luck. The public’s patience with the resident doctors, dedicated professionals as they are, is wearing thin.

Many hoped that the election of a Labour administration committed to investment in the NHS and with a sympathetic attitude to the doctors’ plight would see an end to industrial action. But it has not turned out that way.

The doctors’ current action is the 14th in a series, and there seems to be no end to the misery being inflicted on patients and their families. There is a balance to be struck in any industrial action, in any sector, between the kind that commands public sympathy and the kind that alienates people. It must be effective without causing unnecessary harm and suffering.