By Charlotte Webster-
Junior doctors across England are staging a four-day strike, in an escalating dispute over pay which threatens huge disruption to the NHS. An estimated 350,000 appointments, including operations, are expected to be cancelled as a result of the action that follows years of what critics say are real-terms pay cuts that the government refuses to rectify.
The walkout by up to 47,600 junior doctors threatens to inflict an unprecedented level of disruption on the NHS.
The strikes centre around a pay row between the British Medical Association (BMA) and the government.
The BMA, the doctors’ union, says junior doctors in England have seen a 26% real-terms pay cut since 2008/09 because pay rises have been below inflation.
The union has asked for a full pay restoration that the government said would amount to a 35% pay rise – which ministers have said is unaffordable.
Junior doctors will mount picket lines outside hospitals from 7am until Saturday morning in the longest walkout since nurses, ambulance crews and other health workers started taking action in 2022.
Meanwhile, staff have been warned that any medic on a work visa who strikes would have their ‘absence’ reported to the Home Office — which could make any future visa renewals ‘problematic’.
A message sent out via Whatsapp on Sunday, the senior medic, believed to be a consultant, said: ‘Any doctor who has visa sponsored by the Trust and decides to go on strike, the Trust will report their absence to Border Force, and this could potentially make it problematic when renewing their visa.’
The message added: ‘Please note that this not a Consultant decision but a Trust decision and is in keeping with most (if not all) other Trusts in London.’ Border Force is the law enforcement branch of the Home Office and is responsible for carrying out immigration checks for people entering the UK.
Foreign trained medics are legally entitled to join a union and therefore to strike if a ballot is successful. The message has been criticised as illegal and amounting to intimidation.
Fears have been expressed that emergency departments may have to close in the event of the ongoing dispute
Downing Street has said there will be no talks with doctors unless pay demands are abandoned
There will be no talks with the BMA unless junior doctors abandon their starting position of a 35% rise and call off the strikes.
A No 10 spokesman said Rishi Sunak was being kept up to date about the impact of the industrial action.
”It continues to be the case that we call on the BMA junior doctors to cease their strikes and revise their starting point for negotiations, which is 35%, which we continue to believe is unreasonable and is not affordable for the British taxpayer.
The 35% demand was “completely out of step with pay settlements in other parts of the public sector” and would cost £2bn.
We know that the strike action will have an impact on patient care. The last set of strikes saw around 180,000 operations cancelled and that was a three-day strike, so we’d expect to see higher numbers this week”.
Health secretary, Steve Barclay, insisted his “door remains open”, claiming that he wants to engage in talks with junior doctors.
That’s despite the BMA’s claim that he has met with the union only briefly, made no “credible offer” to avert the strikes and did not attend the latest meeting in person. He told reporters:
;;The government has shown that it is willing to listen and to engage in meaningful and constructive talks. My door is open and we remain willing to engage constructively with the junior doctors.
But, clearly, a demand of 35%, which would involve some junior doctors receiving over £20,000 more in terms of their basic pay, is not reasonable to your viewers, to those who have to balance the wider issues of the economy and getting inflation down alongside recognising the very real pressures that the NHS and junior doctors have been under, not least from the pandemic.
We want to reach a fair and reasonable settlement with junior doctors – we recognise the hugely important role that they play within the NHS.
That’s why we stand ready to have meaningful and constructive talks with them, as we have had with other health unions, as we have in terms of responding at the budget to concerns from doctors regarding their pension.
So we are ready to have discussions with them but clearly a demand for 35% – over £20,000 for some junior doctors – is not fair or reasonable.
And that is why we’ve not been able to make progress so far, but we want to engage constructively.
We recognise junior doctors have been under significant pressure, particularly from the pandemic, and we want to work with them to find a fair and reasonable settlement”.
Doctors say more than a decade of austerity and privatisation has eroded pay and working conditions in the NHS, sparking off the series of strikes, as workers look to defend themselves.
The British Medical Association( BMA) insists that the cut of more than 25% to the salaries of doctors since 2008/09 and the accompanying lack of investment in wages by the Government has made it harder to recruit and retain junior doctors. This puts further pressure on the NHS and makes it harder to deliver care to the standards expected by professionals.