Doctors strike again
As doctors in England returned to the picket line for a fifth time today, NHS bosses issued a stark warning that the embattled health service cannot take any more disruption, with industrial action having already cost it £1 billion.
Strikes over pay by junior doctors – who comprise just under half of the NHS’s medical workforce – have accrued enormous costs thanks to lost productivity and the premium rates paid to consultants to provide cover.
With no end to the strikes in sight, Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, also warned that the sheer volume of planned treatment being postponed “will make it almost impossible for trusts to cut waiting lists as much as the government wants.”
The timing couldn’t be worse. Only yesterday, the NHS backlog hit a new record high of 7.6 million, meaning one in seven people in England are currently on a waiting list for routine treatment.
The total number of procedures and appointments postponed due to NHS industrial action is set to hit one million by the time doctors return to work on Tuesday morning.
Worryingly, there are no ongoing negotiations between ministers and the British Medical Association to resolve their bitter dispute.
Rishi Sunak is talking tough. At a special Downing Street press conference last month, he announced a 6 per cent salary rise for doctors and insisted there would be no more discussions on pay. “No amount of strikes will change our decision,” he added.
But the BMA is calling his bluff. It promptly rejected his offer and hasn’t even budged on its initial demand of a 35 per cent pay rise for junior doctors – a figure it describes as “not a tall ask” but simply “pay restoration” to reverse 15 years of pay erosion.
“Junior doctor” is a broad term covering the entire cohort of staff below consultant level, making it difficult to generalise about salaries. Pay ranges anywhere from £29,000 a year for those fresh out of university to around £77,000 for medics with up to a decade of experience.
Steve Barclay, the Health Secretary, says the BMA’s “unaffordable” and “unreasonable” demand would result in some doctors receiving a pay rise of over £20,000. A Number 10 spokesperson has also described the 35 per cent figure as “completely out of step with pay settlements in other parts of the public sector.”
It’s true that the BMA is taking a particularly tough stance. Back in March, after a fortnight of intensive talks with the government, the RCN, Unison and GMB – which represent NHS staff including nurses and ambulance workers – all recommended that their members accept a 5 per cent pay rise plus a one-off payment.
This does make junior doctors’ demands sound a little out of kilter. That said, the BMA will be mindful of the fact that the Scottish government has offered doctors a pay rise of 12.4 per cent.
As for Sunak, re-entering into any negotiations with the BMA will be humiliating after he spoke so firmly last month about his “final” pay offer. But he may well have no choice.
It’s going to be difficult to break the deadlock – which may mean resorting to a suggestion made by Matthew Taylor, the NHS Confederation’s chief executive, back in April.
Taylor urged both sides to call in an independent public body, such as the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, to oversee talks and act like a referee. There is a precedent for this: ACAS helped break the deadlock after junior doctors went on strike in 2016.
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