Amid ongoing pay disputes, junior doctors in England who belong to the British Medical Association have voted overwhelmingly to continue striking until the middle of September.
When announcing the decision, junior doctors’ leaders once again called on health and social care secretary Victoria Atkins to make a “credible” offer. However, Atkins has ruled out an increased offer.
Junior doctors have asked for a 35% rise to undo the 26% drop in the real-terms value of their salaries that has happened since 2008 as inflation outstripped salary increases. NHS bosses said that the strikes would lead to a rise in cancelled appointments and operations.
Saffron Cordery, the deputy chief executive of the hospitals group NHS Providers, described the strikes as “another worrying escalation in this lengthy dispute between the government and junior doctors.”
Dr Rob Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, the co-chairs of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, commented: “The government believed it could ignore, delay and offer excuses long enough that we would simply give up. That attitude has now led to the NHS wasting £3bn covering the strikes. This is more than double the cost of settling our whole claim.”
This all comes in addition to news that the NHS has a projected £6bn shortfall in its 2024/25 budget, which could lead to further cuts.
A spokesperson for the health department said: “It is disappointing that BMA members have once again voted for industrial action, when we have already given junior doctors a pay rise of up to 10.3% this financial year and made clear in previous negotiations that further investment was available.
“Overall, NHS waiting lists have decreased for four months in a row, but further strikes will impede this progress, and more than 1.4m appointments and operations have now been rescheduled since industrial action began.”
