Labour’s failure to stand up to union demands has left the NHS paralysed and patients paying the price.
Junior doctors are set to walk out for five days next month in yet another damaging blow to the NHS, reigniting an industrial dispute that Labour has failed to get under control.
The British Medical Association (BMA) confirmed that resident doctors (formerly known as junior doctors) will strike from November 14 to 19, accusing the Government of failing to produce a credible plan to improve pay and job security.
The union is demanding a 29 per cent pay rise, despite doctors already receiving an inflation-busting 5.4 per cent average increase this financial year. Over the last three years, they have seen total pay rises worth 28.9 per cent, the largest across the public sector.
The BMA’s chair of the resident doctors committee, Dr Jack Fletcher, said:
“We have spent the last week in talks with the Government, pressing the Health Secretary to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
He claimed the BMA wanted a deal that would “gradually reverse the cuts to pay over several years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”
But the Government rejected the union’s justification for further strikes. Health Secretary Wes Streeting condemned the BMA’s actions, saying it was “preposterous that the BMA have rushed headlong into more damaging strike action a week after its new leadership opened discussions.”
He added:
“These unreasonable and unnecessary strikes do not have the public’s support, nor did a majority of resident doctors vote for them. The BMA’s reckless posturing will harm patients, leave other doctors and NHS staff to pick up the pieces and divert resources away from rebuilding the NHS.”
Streeting insisted the Government had been working to improve conditions and expand specialty training roles, but said the BMA was “walking away from an offer to improve resident doctors’ working conditions and create more specialty training roles to progress their careers.”
The upcoming walkout will begin at 7am on Friday, November 14, and threatens to plunge hospitals into chaos as the NHS enters its busiest winter period.
Dr Fletcher criticised Labour’s handling of the talks, accusing Streeting of failing to understand “the crisis here and now” and said his latest letter offered only “vague promises for some degree of change to jobs and training for two years hence.”
He said:
“While we want to get a deal done, the Government seemingly does not, leaving us with little option but to call for strike action.”
After promising to end industrial action during the general election campaign, critics say Labour has instead presided over a resurgence in NHS unrest.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the strikes were unacceptable and pointed the finger squarely at Labour for emboldening unions.
“Doctors should not be going on strike,” she said. “Conservative policy is to ban strikes by doctors in the same way the police and the army cannot go on strike.
“We need to have adequate levels of healthcare. We had legislation that would provide minimum service levels — Labour scrapped it.”
With patients facing cancelled operations and delayed appointments once again, critics warn that Labour’s failure to stand up to union demands has left the NHS paralysed and patients paying the price.
Main Image Credit: Roger Blackwell Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
