NHS resident doctors will strike for five days later this month, union says
Health Secretary Wes Streeting called the move 'completely unreasonable' and urged the union to 'abandon their rush to strike', while health chiefs warned strikes are 'unfair to patients'.
Resident doctors are scheduled to strike from 7am on July 25 to 7am on July 30.
BMA resident doctors committee co-chairs, Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, said in a statement they had met with Mr Streeting but the Government would not move on pay.
It said: 'We met Wes Streeting yesterday and made every attempt to avoid strike action by opening negotiations for pay restoration.
'Unfortunately, the Government has stated that it will not negotiate on pay, wanting to focus on non-pay elements without suggesting what these might be.
'Without a credible offer to keep us on the path to restore our pay, we have no choice but to call strikes.
'No doctor wants to strike, and these strikes don't have to go ahead.
'If Mr Streeting can seriously come to the table in the next two weeks we can ensure that no disruption is caused.
'The Government knows what is needed to avert strikes. The choice is theirs.'
Reacting to the BMA announcement, Mr Streeting said: 'I wrote to the BMA this morning to offer to meet their committee and work with them to improve the working lives of resident doctors.
'Instead of talking, they've announced strikes.
'No trade union in British history has seen its members receive a 28.9% pay rise only to immediately respond with strikes, and the majority of BMA resident doctors didn't vote to strike.
'This is completely unreasonable.
'The NHS recovery is hanging by a thread, and the BMA are threatening to pull it.
'The BMA should abandon their rush to strike and work with us to improve resident doctors' working lives instead.'
It comes after Mr Streeting warned that the public 'will not forgive' strike action by resident doctors.
He wrote in The Times that walkouts would be a 'disaster' for BMA members and patients, saying the Government 'can't afford' more pay rises.
Some 90% of voting resident doctors backed strike action, with the BMA reporting a turnout of 55%.
The union has said that resident doctors need a pay uplift of 29.2% to reverse 'pay erosion' since 2008/09.
A Number 10 spokesman said: 'We aren't going to reopen negotiations on pay.
'Resident doctors have received the highest pay award across the public sector for two years in a row, and we've been clear that we can't be more generous than we already have this year.'
Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of NHS Providers, warned five days of strike action with two weeks' notice 'can only be harmful'.
'It's totally unfair to patients whose care will be cancelled at such short notice just as the NHS was beginning to turn the tide on reducing waiting lists,' he said.
'It shows a lack of respect for colleagues from many other disciplines who received lower pay rises and will now have to cover resident doctors' work.
'And it is going to divert attention away from improving services to focus on planning to keep services as safe as possible.
'We need cool heads to de-escalate this and remove the threat of further damaging industrial action.'
Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, part of the NHS Confederation, also warned industrial action 'will have a huge impact on the NHS and its patients' and could lead to thousands of cancelled appointments and operations.
'While NHS leaders and their teams will have to fill rota gaps and rearrange appointments, ultimately it is patients who will bear the brunt of this decision and will be left waiting longer for treatments,' he said.
'It is disappointing that talks to avert industrial action seem to have broken down so quickly. But it is hard to see how the Government could commit to increasing resident doctor pay further, particularly after they have received some of the biggest public sector pay rises over the last two years.'
In September, BMA members voted to accept a Government pay deal worth 22.3% on average over two years.
The 2025/26 pay deal saw resident doctors given a 4% uplift plus £750 'on a consolidated basis' – working out as an average pay rise of 5.4%.
The BMA call for a 29.2% uplift is based on Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation, the measure of average changes in the price of goods and services used by most households.
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