Doctors out in pressure on picket traces outdoors NHS hospitals at begin of 5-day strike
NHS hospital bosses warn appointments will be cancelled well into 2026 after the British Medical Association’s doctors’ strike until 7am Monday in increasingly bitter dispute
Hospital bosses have warned NHS operations could be cancelled well into the New Year at the start of a five-day strike by doctors in the build-up to Christmas.
Some 70,000 operations and appointments could be cancelled this week and many patients will go through Christmas not knowing when their treatment may be rescheduled. Resident doctors in England represented by the British Medical Association have walked out after rejecting a last minute deal to provide more jobs by Wes Streeting.
The Health Secretary refused to increase the headline pay rise of 5.4% for 2025/26 and is locked in an increasingly bitter war of words with the BMA leadership.
Nick Hulme, chief executive of the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said: “With any industrial action, it’s always the patients who pay the price. We will keep services safe over a really difficult time we’re facing at the moment, but there’s a consequence for that.
“Although we will try to keep the cancellations to an absolute minimum, those senior staff that step down [to cover colleagues] will need rest. They will have to take time off subsequently and that will mean we’ll have to cancel operations well into the new year.”
Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals, told Times Radio: “This industrial action is going to have a big impact on the NHS.
“It feels like the worst possible Groundhog Day because once again, we’re all waking up to five days of industrial action in the NHS and, unlike the film, it’s real, so thousands of patients are going to have their operations and appointments cancelled and postponed.
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“Thousands of other staff are going to have to cover for the resident doctors. It’s going to cost the NHS a fortune, and it means we can’t be doing the thing that we really want to be doing, which is improving the NHS for the public.
“And what’s so frustrating is that this strike feels no closer to being resolved than it ever has been, and it’s getting more and more acrimonious as well.”
NHS Confederation, which represented NHS bosses, has called on the BMA and Mr Streeting to agree to independent mediation to settle the increasingly bitter dispute. They are now in a 33 month dispute and are now in their 14th strike action since 2023.
Mr Elkeles joined calls for the BMA and the Government to take part in external mediation. It comes after more BMA members voted to reject the Government’s latest jobs offer than had voted for strike action in the initial ballot – suggesting Mr Streeting’s combative rhetoric may resonate with the general public but was hardening the resolve of doctors to strike for a better deal.
What does the BMA want?
The BMA is calling for a commitment to increase pay by 26% over the next few years. The BMA points to pay erosion since 2008 saying real terms salaries are down a fifth since then, according to the Retail Price Index measure of inflation.
The Government’s preferred measure of inflation is the Consumer Price Index – which excludes mortgage and permanent housing costs – shows average resident doctor salaries down 5% since 2008.
Mr Streeting pointed out that by any measure their pay has been increasing in real terms in recent years, including their latest 5.4% deal for 2025/26.
What was the offer?
The new offer included new legislation to ensure homegrown doctors in training have priority for speciality training roles.
The Government also wants to tackle long-established “bottle necks” where doctors become unemployed due to a lack of training places. It offers an increase of 4,000 speciality training posts over the next three years, with 1,000 of these brought forward to start in 2026.
The offer will also tackle doctors’ training costs by funding mandatory examination and Royal College membership fees for resident doctors.
Mr Elkeles said: “We seem to have reached an impasse. It seems quite incredulous to us that the Government who put such a good offer on the table last week could have been met with such a resounding ballot from the doctors saying ‘we don’t agree’. So it feels like we need to do something to unlock this, and if external mediation is the thing that will unlock it, then please, can we get on and do it?
“Because there is a small window after this strike where before the residents re ballot, and where you could say you don’t need to re ballot, because we’ve actually managed to reach an agreement, and we need to get to that point.”
Resident doctors, those below consultant level who mainly work in hospitals, are striking as record numbers of people are hospitalised with flu for the time of year.
NHS leaders had warned of the impact of the strike which will see other staff such as nurses have to cover for doctors at the busiest time of year as the health service battles a record flu surge.
Dr Jack Fletcher, chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee, said: “At the weekend, tens of thousands of frontline doctors came together to vote to tell the Government their offer was insufficient to call off these strikes. The Government should now know in very clear terms how badly they have handled this situation.
“Those tens of thousands of doctors will again go out on strike today, making clear that they are willing to stand up for their profession against a totally avoidable jobs crisis. With some facing unemployment and others leaving the country entirely.
“It is well past the time for ministers to come up with a genuinely long-term plan. If they can simply provide a clear route to responsibly raise pay over a number of years, and enough genuinely new jobs instead of recycled ones, then there need not be any more strikes for the remainder of this Government.”
