Resident doctors begin 13th strike as pay dispute in England conitnues

NHS bosses are keen to keep almost all services open as resident doctors begin a five-day strike in England.

The strike – the 13th by British Medical Association (BMA) members in a long-running pay dispute – began at 0700 GMT and will last until 0700 Wednesday.

Resident doctors (the new name for junior doctors) refuse both urgent and non-urgent care.

The greatest burden will be placed on hospitals, where resident doctors will make up about half of the medical staff. But NHS England says patients should still attend appointments unless otherwise advised.

NHS England has said it wants to retain 95% of non-urgent operations such as hip and knee operations.

The NHS aims to achieve this by reassigning and offering overtime to consultants and other senior doctors, and by relying on those who are not on strike – around a third of resident doctors are not members of the BMA.

But it will come at a significant cost: the NHS estimates it will cost £240 million to cover a five-day strike.

Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, Nick Hulme, chief executive of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said that while there would be disruption for some patients, the impact of the strike would be “minimal” due to the movement of staff.

He also said that during the strike, more resident doctors had decided to work: “They are voting with their feet and going back to work.”

Dr Tom Dolphin, chairman of the BMA council, said the union was “at an impasse” with the government over wages and jobs.

“Our salaries are still one-fifth lower than they were in 2008,” he said, adding that “there are thousands of doctors who cannot get into training positions, who cannot become specialists and the general practitioners of the future that we need.”

Mr Hume said his trust “works very hard” to make sure resident doctors receive “advance notice of duty” and do not have to travel long distances to work. But he said paying them was a matter for the government and the BMA.

Meanwhile, resident doctors in Scotland vote for a strike over wages.

Despite efforts to continue services, patients like Colette Houlihan, 68, are still facing delays.

She was supposed to have a pre-op appointment on Monday, but it has now been pushed back to the end of December.

Ms Houlihan, from Cambridgeshire, who is awaiting the removal of a benign tumor on her neck, said she had already had to cope with two cancellations but could understand them as she had been told patients who were higher priority needed to be seen.

“They could have cancer. I didn't mind it, but it's a different matter.

“I'm furious. By going on strike, they are ignoring the Hippocratic Oath – first, do no harm.

“The strike is harmful because it delays procedures, removes senior doctors from their positions and causes chaos within the system,” she said.

NHS England medical director Professor Meghana Pandit said it was disappointing and disappointing that there had been another round of strikes at a difficult time for the NHS, with flu cases rising earlier than usual.

“Despite this, NHS staff are working very hard to provide care and limit disruption,” she added.

But BMA leader Dr Tom Dolphin said keeping most services running would be a “challenge”.

He said doctors have the legal right to strike and should not be “intimidated or coerced” into working.

And he warned that his members would only leave the picket line in the event of a serious emergency, such as a mass casualty event.

The latest strike comes after Health Secretary Wes Streeting launched what may be his strongest attack yet on the BMA.

Speaking at a conference of health care executives this week, he called the union “morally reprehensible” and accused it of acting like a cartel, trying to hold the public and government to ransom.

He said doctors had received generous pay rises of almost 30% over the past three years, bringing the average basic salary to just over £54,000.

Negotiations between him and the union broke down last week after BMA rejects new proposal to end dispute.

Streeting maintained throughout the year that he could not negotiate wages, but he proposed a deal that would cover personal expenses such as examination and membership fees, as well as increasing the number of specialist training places.

But the BMA says that despite the pay rise, resident doctors' pay is still a fifth lower than in 2008 when inflation is taken into account.

The union also warned that doctors are struggling to find work at a key stage in their training – between the second and third years of training when they begin specialising.

This year there have been more than 30,000 applicants for 10,000 jobs in this phase, although some will be doctors from overseas.

“We need a solution to the employment crisis, this bottleneck for doctors who don't have regular or permanent work,” Dr Emma Runswick, deputy chair of the BMA Council, told the BBC.

“Then we need to be able to retain these doctors throughout their careers by paying them appropriate salaries, and that means restoring wages.”

On the Today programme, the BMA's Tom Dolphin said there was a “big difference” between what doctors can earn in the UK compared to other countries such as Ireland, Australia and Canada, “where salaries can be double and sometimes more than in the UK”.

“We need to make sure we invest in staff in the UK so we can keep them in the UK and provide the specialists and GPs that people need,” he added.

“We want to negotiate, we want to resolve this issue. We don't want to go on strike. We'd rather look after patients.”

Additional reporting by Chris Bramwell.