Resident doctors vote to go back on strike in government pay row
DOCS STRIKE BACK Resident doctors vote to go back on strike in government pay row
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TRAINEE doctors have voted to strike again in their pay row with the Government.
Resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, voted 90 per cent in favour of more walkouts in a ballot that ended on Monday.
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Doctors went on strike multiple times over 18 months in the last phase of the pay row
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British Medical Association members want another pay rise worth 29 per cent, despite bagging a massive 22 per cent last year.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting boasted he had solved the long-running NHS pay row, which started in 2022, within weeks of being elected last summer.
His deal saw a newly qualified doctor's basic salary increase from £29,400 to £36,600 in the first year and from £58,400 to £70,400 in the final year.
But the BMA is back on the warpath, with senior doctors also considering another run of industrial action.
The last round of strikes lasted 18 months, from March 2023 to September 2024, after a dispute that began in 2022.
Million-plus appointments cancelled last time
More than a million appointments were cancelled and at least one patient was ruled to have died as a result of a drop in medical care.
The walkouts also stifled NHS attempts to cut waiting times and shrink the Covid backlog.
Today's ballot result was 90 per cent in favour of industrial action after votes from just 55 per cent of members.
It means the union will have a six-month mandate to hold walkouts from now, through the notoriously tough winter, until January 2026.
But doctors have lower public support this time compared to the first round of protests.
NHS patients lined up in A&E corridor
A YouGov poll of 4,100 Brits found public support for strikes has tumbled from 52 per cent last summer to 39 per cent now.
The pollster said the results mark 'a shift in opinion'.
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