Resident doctors in the UK have begun their six-day walkout over jobs and pay after it was revealed their previous strikes cost the NHS £3billion in the last three years.
Tens of thousands of resident doctors – formerly known as junior doctors – joined picket lines at 7am this morning after rejecting a pay deal which would have made them 35.2 per cent better off than four years ago, the Health Secretary said.
NHS health leaders have said the strike will be ‘difficult’ to manage and expect a surge in demand following the bank holiday weekend but still urged patients to come forward to doctors with health problems as usual.
It costs the NHS £50million a day when medics walk out. Bosses are forced to cancel procedures and pay consultants up to £313 an hour to cover for their junior colleagues.
The £3billion total lost to strikes in the last three years could pay for 1.5million operations, 15million outpatient appointments or 75,000 nurses for a year – or be used to build three new hospitals.
Today’s strike is one of the longest the NHS has faced in the last three years and NHS officials have said it will be ‘challenging due to the shorter notice period’ and made worse by staff booking time off around the Easter holiday.
Bosses said this morning that while 95 per cent of planned appointments would still go ahead, this would mean there will be thousands of postponements. Patients are still urged to attend appointments as usual unless told otherwise.
The strikes come after a government row with the British Medical Association (BMA) over pay and job opportunities. The BMA’s resident doctors’ committee rejected the government’s offer, and negotiations broke down.
Tens of thousands of resident doctors – formerly known as junior doctors – have joined picket lines in today’s strikes (pictured). Doctors’ strikes have cost the NHS £3billion in the last three years
The strikes will last six days – one of the longest the NHS has faced – and is over disputes over pay and job opportunities
The government’s proposal, published by Health Secretary Wes Streeting last month, included a 4.9 per cent increase in average basic pay from 2026 to 2027.
According to Mr Streeting, this would have left resident doctors 35.2 per cent better off than four years ago.
On the job opportunity front, the deal would have introduced 1,000 extra training places.
The Health Secretary commented that the BMA was ‘the biggest winner, by a country mile, of public sector pay increase’ and negotiated with them ‘in good faith’ when critics pointed out the £3billion lost on strike would be the cost of the pay increases the union is demanding.
He told the Today Programme this morning: ‘In order to deliver full pay restoration back to 2008 levels using the RPI count for inflation, it would probably cost £3billion to do that – that would be £3billion a year.
‘Let’s then assume that other NHS staff would understandably demand the same. Then that cost would be more like £30billion a year.
‘That is more than the entire cost than the Ministry of Justice’s entire budget for running the entire justice system.
‘Now this goes to the heart of the intransigence of the BMA. Despite being the biggest winner, by a country mile, of public sector pay increase since this government came in – 28.9 per cent is what they got from us within weeks of taking office – they still went out on strike.’
The strikes have meant that the extra training places in the deal will be scrapped as they are no longer ‘financially or operationally’ after the industrial action, the Department of Health and Social Care said last Thursday.
When asked if these training places could be back on the table at any point, Mr Streeting told the Today Programme this morning: ‘Not in time for September, no. For two reasons: One is that the reason why I was really keen to get the deal over the line before Easter.
‘And I was really up front with resident doctors representatives back earlier in the new year, because operationally we need to have got those applications open this month in time for the autumn.
‘And financially we can now longer afford to fund those places because of this week’s strike action.’
Staff of the BMA itself are currently on the second day of their 48-hour strike over pay. Mr Streeting pointed out the union was offering a 2.75 per cent pay increase to – nearly half that of the average 4.9 per cent increase he had offered junior doctors.
BMA officials defended their position however and said they supported both their staff and the junior doctors in their strikes to which Mr Streeting jibed: ‘Well if only they had the power to do something about it as officers of the BMA.
‘That sounds like a big dollop of cakeism, but it is Easter I suppose so maybe there’s some left over.
The British Medical Association (BMA) rejected the goverment’s deal for a 4.9 per cent average pay increase which Health Secretary Wes Streeting said would have made them 35.2 per cent better off than four years ago
The government deal was to bring in 1,000 new training positions next month but these have been scrapped as the strikes have made them no longer ‘financially or operationally’ feasible
The BMA is ‘intransigent’ and unwilling to move on an ‘increasingly absurd set of positions’, Health Secretary Wes Streeting (pictured) said, after pointing out the BMA had been the biggest winner of government pay increases ‘by a country mile’
‘But there’s a serious point here. The resident doctor’s committee and adopting an increasingly absurd set of positions.’
Health commentators have said that these junior doctors’ strikes can cost the NHS up to £300 million each time.
NHS England’s Professor Ramani Moonesinghe said on Monday: ‘We know this round of industrial action will be difficult, coming straight after the Easter weekend, but patients should come forward as normal and attend any appointments unless they are contacted otherwise.’
Mr Streeting said that the strike was ‘disappointing’, adding: ‘My attention and that of leaders across the NHS is now on protecting patients and staff by minimising disruption to the health service.’
Writing in the Daily Express, he said he would ‘not allow this needless strike action to undermine our country’s greatest institution’.
He wrote: ‘Strikes will mean some cancelled appointments, but… the Government is working with NHS teams across the country to minimise disruption and ensure people can access the care they need.’
Dr Jack Fletcher, chairman of the BMA’s resident doctors committee, said the Government ‘quietly watered down’ the deal on offer to resident doctors.
He added: ‘Resident doctors are as keen as he is to bring an end to the strikes, but his Government needs to put an offer on the table that we can accept and which doesn’t change at the last minute.’
This is the 15th doctors’ strike in England since 2023. Elsewhere, hundreds of BMA staff are already on a 48-hour strike which began yesterday due to a dispute over pay.
Following the junior doctors’ walkouts, it emerged last week the BMA plans that senior medics will also be asked to vote on whether to strike after ministers announced a 3.5 per cent pay award.
Simultaneous ballots of consultants and specialist, associate specialist and specialty (SAS) doctors will run from May 11 until July 6.