Government makes determined supply for militant medical doctors to name off strikes amid ‘superflu’ surge – as NHS bosses warn it is ‘now or by no means’ to get youngsters jabbed to guard grandparents this Christmas

The Government is making a last-ditch offer to doctors in a bid to avert strikes as the NHS battles the worst flu season in decades.

Health secretary Wes Streeting tonight made an announcement in the Commons with details of the improved offer.

Hospital bosses will hope it is enough to stop next week’s planned five-day walkout when some hospitals are already declaring critical incidents.

The British Medical Association will survey its members on whether to call off strikes planned for next week – with medics urged to vote online over the next few days, with the ballot closing on Monday.

If they vote in favour of the health secretary’s proposals, the industrial action will be postponed while a formal ballot on ending the dispute takes place. Otherwise the walkout will go ahead as planned.

It comes as health chiefs issued an urgent plea to parents to get their children vaccinated against flu in a bid to protect their grandparents at Christmas. 

At least six hospitals have already declared ‘critical incidents’ amid a record-breaking surge in flu that has also seen Covid-era mask mandates reintroduced. 

The number of hospital beds in England occupied by infected flu patients is already higher than ever for this time of year with ‘no peak in sight’.

Britain’s medical leaders believe the UK could face its worst flu season to date, with other hospitals implementing visitor bans in a bid to curb infections. 

Yet despite safety fears, the British Medical Association (BMA) had planned to stage a five-day strike next week following a row over resident doctors’ pay and working conditions. 

Thousands of medics — formerly known as junior doctors — who are demanding a 26 per cent pay rise, are set to walk out from December 17 until December 22.

They have already seen their pay balloon by 28.9 per cent over the past three years and each five-day walkout costs the NHS around £300million in lost activity and overtime payments to covering consultants. 

But in a last-minute attempt to thwart the action, the Government has put forward an offer to the BMA, which they will now put to their members.

The offer includes emergency legislation in the New Year to prioritise UK medical graduates and other doctors with significant experience working in the NHS for specialty training roles and the increase of specialty training posts over the next three years from the 1,000 announced in the 10 Year Health Plan, to 4,000.

The government will bring forward 1,000 of those training posts to start in 2026.

Ministers will also fund mandatory Royal College examination and membership fees for resident doctors. But there is no extra money for a further pay rise.

Mr Streeting tonight told MPs that hospitals are ‘running hot’, with 95 per cent of beds occupied, growing numbers of staff off sick and the new strain of flu ‘more likely to affect older people more severely’.

He added: ‘It is against this backdrop that the BMA is threatening to douse the NHS in petrol, light a match, and march its members out on strike.

‘This represents a different magnitude of risk to previous industrial action.’

Mr Streeting said the looming strike action threatens ‘chaos’ ‘at the most dangerous time of year’ and stressed his proposal to expand speciality training roles and prioritise UK graduates would half competition from four applicants per post to fewer than two.

He expressed particular frustration at the BMA’s refusal to postpone next week’s strike and proceed immediately to a formal ballot of members, revealing he had been willing to extend the union’s strike mandate so they could move their walkout to the new year if members rejected his enhanced offer.

He continued: ‘No one should be in any doubt, that the BMA has chosen to play politics with people’s lives this Christmas, and to continue holding the spectre of strikes over the NHS.

‘I ask resident doctors to bare that in mind when they cast their votes.’

Hospital bosses had feared the ‘calculated’ disruption — at a time when hospital staffing rotas are ‘very fragile’ because of upcoming Christmas holidays and winter illness — will cause ‘mayhem’ and also see patients left at greater risk of ‘unacceptable care’.

The BMA resident doctors committee chair Dr Jack Fletcher today said: ‘This offer is the result of thousands of resident doctors showing that they are prepared to stand up for their profession and its future.

‘It should not have taken strike action, but make no mistake: it was strike action that got us this far.

‘We have forced the Government to recognise the scale of the problems and to respond with measures on training numbers and prioritisation. 

‘However, this offer does not increase the overall number of doctors working in England and does nothing to restore pay for doctors, which remains well within the Government’s power to do.

‘If members believe this is enough to call off strike action then we will hold a referendum to end the dispute. 

‘But if they give us a clear message that it is not, the Government will have to go further to end industrial action.’ 

If the walkout goes ahead as planned, it will be the 14th strike resident doctors have held since the long-running pay dispute started in March 2023.

It would also come just weeks after an earlier five-day walkout in mid-November. 

But Health Secretary Wes Streeting today labelled the BMA’s decision not to postpone strikes until at least January, following his offer, ‘astounding’ and ‘the most shameful episode in the long history of the BMA’.

He said: ‘Doctors asked me to deliver on jobs, especially unfair competition from overseas, and this comprehensive offer will deliver — providing resident doctors currently applying with more jobs, prioritising UK-trained graduates, and putting money back in the pockets of resident doctors. 

‘It builds on a 28.9 per cent pay rise which has already been delivered.

‘We have been working around the clock to prepare emergency legislation to prioritise our homegrown talent and halve the competition for jobs that resident doctors currently face — that is now on the table. 

‘But it can only happen if resident doctors vote to accept the deal and end these strikes.

‘This offer will now go to BMA members, but the BMA have chosen to continue holding the spectre of strikes over the NHS next week. 

‘This was entirely avoidable as I offered to give the BMA the chance to reschedule strikes in January after the vote has taken place so that they could cancel the Christmas strikes, which are timed for the most damaging period of the year.

‘I am astounded that the BMA’s leadership rejected this. 

‘It means their NHS colleagues will this week be cancelling Christmas plans to cover shifts, and patients will have their operations cancelled, as the NHS prepares for the worst. 

‘I cannot understand the wilful casualness with which the BMA’s leadership have chosen to inflict this pain on patients, other staff and the NHS itself. 

‘It is one of the most shameful episodes in the long history of the BMA.’  

Health experts had also branded the action in the run-up to Christmas ‘cruel and calculated to cause mayhem’ and have repeatedly urged the BMA to call it off. 

Dennis Reed, director of senior citizen campaign group Silver Voices, told the Daily Mail: ‘The resident doctors have deliberately chosen the worst possible time for this strike, with thousands of sick and frail senior citizens stuck in undignified and draughty corridors, and in the middle of a serious flu epidemic. 

‘What a Christmas lies in store if you urgently need the NHS over the holiday season. 

‘The BMA should show some festive goodwill and charitable spirit of the season and postpone their strike until the winter crisis is over.’

Meanwhile, NHS chief executive Sir Jim Mackey said: ‘This is totally reckless behaviour from the BMA Committee.

‘The timing of the latest industrial action is clearly designed to maximise disruption of patient care, coming just as flu cases are surging and we enter the most dangerous time of year for hospitals.

‘The NHS has done everything in the last two rounds of BMA industrial action to minimise disruption, but the BMA Resident Doctors Committee absolutely know it will take a monumental effort to keep patients safe this time, which makes this a shameful decision to have taken.’

In an unprecedented intervention, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AMRC), which represents the UK and Ireland’s 22 royal colleges, had also urged the BMA to ‘abandon guidance’ which states medics should not tell employers if they are planning to strike. 

Dr Jeanette Dickson, chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, added: ‘It’s not for us to comment on the rights or wrongs of the industrial action and we genuinely take no sides in this dispute, but as the body that represents the cross-cutting interests of all medical colleges we are concerned about the impact on patients of a further five days of industrial action at this critical time of year.

‘So, we are calling on both sides to do everything they can to end this painful dispute once and for all and we stand ready to help if we can.’

Surveillance programmes that monitor the UK’s outbreak suggest flu hospital admissions in England are more than double last year over the same time period and ten times higher than 2023.

Figures show an average of 1,717 beds alone were taken up by flu patients each day last week, up on the 1,098 in 2024 and 160 in 2023. 

Of these, 69 were in critical care — almost double the 39 logged last year. 

The mutant H3N2 flu strain is believed to be driving the unprecedented number of infections. 

Dubbed subclade K or the ‘super flu’, it mutated seven times over the summer, helping it to evade previous immunity, sparking alarm among experts.

Caroline Temmink, the NHS director of vaccinations, said: ‘As families gear up for festive celebrations together, it’s now or never to get protected against flu in time for Christmas.

‘Children are super-spreaders and with flu infections rising fast in younger age groups, getting kids vaccinated is one of the best ways to prevent serious illness, especially for grandparents and loved ones who are vulnerable.’ 

Rising flu cases have led to a critical incident being declared at at least six hospitals in the West Midlands, including Birmingham, Solihull, Stafford and Stoke-on-Trent.

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, which is responsible for Queen Elizabeth, Heathlands and Good Hope Hospitals along with nearby Solihull Hospital, issued an alert due to ‘extreme pressures’.

The trust posted on all its hospitals’ social media sites saying its A&E departments are facing huge demand.

Meanwhile, University Hospitals of North Midlands (UHNM) trust is urging people to only use A&E in a serious or life-threatening emergency. 

The announcement covers both Royal Stoke University Hospital and County Hospital, Stafford.

Chief operating officer Katy Thorp said the difficult decision to declare a critical incident would allow them to take extra measures to keep services safe for hospital patients and those waiting for an ambulance.

In Scotland, NHS Ayrshire and Arran has also cancelled ‘routine visiting’ across all its hospitals amid ‘significant pressure’ due to a ‘sharp rise in viral respiratory infections, including flu’. 

One surgeon working at Lewisham Hospital told the Daily Mail they had also been forced to cancel surgeries due to staffing pressure and patients who had been struck down by flu, leaving them ‘running on fairly thin ground’.  

Mandatory mask rules have been imposed over recent weeks in parts of hospitals in London, Berkshire, Surrey, Lincolnshire, Shropshire and Oxfordshire amid alarm at infection numbers.

Some schools across the UK have also been forced to close temporarily or take extra precautions as a severe strain of flu spreads through classrooms.

Resident doctors will be consulted over whether the Government’s offer is enough to call off next week’s walkout through an online survey, which will close on Monday December 15. 

The group of medics make up around half of all doctors in the NHS.  

The BMA claimed first year resident doctor pay is 21 per cent lower in real terms than it was in 2008.

It wants pay for the group to be brought back in line with the level it was at 17 years ago, when they say their value of their pay started to be eroded.

The claim is based on a measure of inflation called the Retail Price Index (RPI) — this includes housing costs and shows higher price increases than some other inflation measures.

However, the Government says RPI is outdated. 

Instead, it uses the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) to calculate inflation and pay increases. 

CPI looks at the cost of goods and services based on a basket of household items. 

Using the CPI measure, the Government says resident doctors’ current pay is fair.

Analysis from health think tank the Nuffield Trust has suggested that pay has fallen 5 per cent since 2008 if CPI is used.