Doctors' strike threat over 29% pay demand 'greedy', say medical chiefs

Resident doctors stand accused of being "very greedy" over their 29% pay demand before talks today with Wes Streeting that will aim to head off a five-day strike next week.

- Denis Campbell

The Guardian spoke to hospital trust bosses and some of the UK's most senior medics, all of whom criticised the walkout by resident (formerly junior) doctors in England and said that it would cause "absolute chaos" in the NHS.

Their 29% pay claim is causing serious divisions with lesser-paid staff who work alongside them at the NHS frontline, hospital chiefs say.

"This is an unnecessarily greedy ask in a resource-constrained system, that deprives patients and other staff directly," one leader of the medical profession said.

They pointed to the 22% salary increase for 2023-24 and 2024-25 that Streeting, the health secretary, gave resident doctors in England last year soon after Labour won power.

They said: "Other staff groups let resident doctors get a big rise last year on the understanding that from this year all NHS staff would receive roughly the same increases.

"But resident doctors tend to see themselves as the only people who work in healthcare and not as part of a health ecosystem. They don't seem to realise the tensions they are creating with their workmates. Their demands are very greedy."