Tories would ban doctors' strikes, Badenoch says
Thousands of resident doctors, previously known as junior doctors, began a five-day walkout on Friday after relations between the Government and British Medical Association (BMA) soured over a dispute about pay.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said the union will not be allowed to 'hold the country to ransom' after receiving a 28.9% pay award over the last three years, the highest across the public sector.
The BMA says, despite this uplift, pay for resident doctors has declined by a fifth since 2008 once inflation is taken into account.
On Saturday, the Conservatives said they would reintroduce minimum service level requirements, which were brought in by the previous government and scrapped by Labour, across the health service.
Mrs Badenoch said: 'The BMA has become militant, these strikes are going too far, and it is time for action.
'Doctors do incredibly important work.
'Medicine is a vocation, not just a job.
'That is why in government we offered a fair deal that supported doctors, but protected taxpayers too.'
She said the Tories were 'making an offer in the national interest, we will work with the Government to face down the BMA to help protect patients and the NHS.'
Patients have been urged to attend appointments unless told otherwise while the action is ongoing, with NHS England saying hospitals are aiming to reschedule any cancellations due to strikes within two weeks.
Mr Streeting has warned of a challenging few days for the health service but said 'we are doing everything we can to minimise' harm.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Nurses set to reject pay offer as further strike action looms
Nurses will this week overwhelmingly reject their pay deal, raising the prospect that they will join junior doctors on strike. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) will warn ministers that they must come back to the table over the summer to avoid a formal strike ballot in the autumn and additional unrest that will further set back NHS recovery. However, public support for doctors' strikes appears to be waning, as ministers accuse them of holding the country to ransom and hospitals report fewer staff joining picket lines. Resident doctors, formerly known junior doctors, are in a five-day walkout after rejecting a 5.4 per cent pay rise, which came after a 22 per cent increase last year. Polling for The Times found that 55 per cent of voters oppose the strike, up from 49 per cent earlier this month, while 32 per cent support it, down four points from the second week of July before the walkouts began. Tom Dolphin, the head of the British Medical Association (BMA), insisted that doctors 'don't want to be on strike', but said the walkouts were necessary because doctors were 'undervalued' and were 'leaving the NHS in large numbers'. He said that pay had to be 'enough to recruit and retain the best doctors'. Ministers have refused to reopen pay talks and negotiations on working conditions collapsed in acrimony last week as ministers accused the BMA of acting in bad faith, while the union said the government had failed to make any concrete offers. • NHS patients told to brace for strikes until Christmas and beyond The BMA is holding out for a full return to 2008 levels of pay and Dolphin said salaries 'reflect the responsibility of these doctors' who were making 'life and death decisions'. He said: 'Even nurses who've had a pretty bad time [are] not as badly off as doctors in terms of lost pay.' Nurses, however, are furious that their 3.6 per cent pay rise this year was lower than doctors' increases for the second year in a row. The RCN is holding an indicative vote on the pay award, which closed on Sunday. The vote is understood to show 'overwhelming' rejection of a deal, with turnout likely to be well over the 50 per cent threshold that would be needed for industrial action. The union is due to announce final results later this week with a call for ministers to return to the table. While the BMA is adamant that headline pay must rise, nurses are thought to be more open to talks on wider pay structures. The RCN has repeatedly complained that nurses can remain on the lowest rung of the NHS pay scale for decades and is expected to press ministers for reforms that would allow them to move up the scale as they gain experience. If no progress is made, a formal strike ballot is likely to be launched in the autumn. A spokesman for the union said: 'The results will be announced to our members later this week. As the largest part of the NHS workforce, nursing staff do not feel valued and the government must urgently begin to turn that around.' It came after ambulance and other hospital staff in the GMB Union voted to reject the 3.6 per cent offer last week, with strike action now being considered. The BMA consultants' committee is also holding an indicative vote over a 4 per cent pay deal it described an 'insult' to senior doctors. Dolphin said the vote was 'a testing of the waters to see where people are', but warned: 'We're certainly very aware already, even before we've done this ballot, the consultants are also very much down on their pay [compared with 2008].' He told Sky News he did not recognise reports that doctors were being paid £6,000 a shift to cover for strikes, but said overtime rates were 'whatever they can manage to negotiate with their employer'.
Powys County Times
2 hours ago
- Powys County Times
Llandrindod's Samaritans branch could be under threat
UNCERTAINTY clouds the future of Powys' sole Samaritans branch, after the suicide prevention charity announced that at least half of its offices in the UK will close. The proposals were revealed in a video message to staff earlier this month, sent by the leadership of the charity. It is believed there is no definitive view on how many branches the charity will close, but chief executive Julie Bentley said: 'It's likely that within the next seven to 10 years our branch network will have (been) reduced by at least half. 'With less branches, we'll look to move to fewer but bigger regions.' Samaritans has more than 200 branches across the UK. Llandrindod Wells is the only one in Powys and one of 10 in Wales. The list of branches which could close has not been decided; though if the charity's board agrees to the plans at a meeting in September, the changes will begin in April in the UK and 2027 in Ireland. In response to the closures, Plaid Cymru health spokesperson, Mabon ap Gwynfor, expressed particular concern on the impact the closures will have on the Welsh Government's suicide prevention strategy. He called for 'urgent explanations' from the Welsh Government. 'The work that the Samaritans do day in, day out is invaluable,' he said. 'The news of so many branches closing will be met with disappointment and fear in Wales and across the UK. 'We need urgent explanations from the Welsh Government about what this means for Wales' mental health and suicide prevention strategy. 'We must also recognise the invaluable service offered by the Samaritans through the medium of Welsh – a service that we must try to protect.' Founded in 1953, the Samaritans focus on preventing suicides by connecting trained volunteers with people who are struggling. The charity estimates it answers a call for help every 10 seconds. The news comes as the charity launched a groundbreaking project at the Royal Welsh Show to reduce suicide in farming communities. Samaritans Cymru is setting out to break the cycle of suicide risk in rural Wales by launching the 'Our Farming, Our Future' project. The project will work closely with Wales Young Farmers Clubs (YFC) in Ceredigion, Brecknock, Montgomery and Radnorshire to develop peer-led activities and resources that can be cascaded across farming communities to reduce the risk of suicide in rural areas. Powys Samaritans is the youngest Samaritans branch (premises based) in the UK and was set up in the wake of the foot and mouth outbreak in 1994. Over the last 31 years the branch has moved from a one-bedroomed flat to renting a larger premises; and it now owns an entire building on the spa town's High Street, comprising of upstairs rooms for listening volunteers and training, in addition to a charity shop on the ground floor which brings in the majority of funding.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Wes Streeting ‘thought he had struck deal to halt strike by doctors'
Wes Streeting thought he had struck a deal with resident doctors to stop a five-day strike in England, only for the British Medical Association to then reject it, sources have claimed. The health secretary believed he had secured a verbal agreement with the co-chairs of the BMA's resident doctors committee for a deal that involved progress on tackling five non-pay issues. Whitehall sources say Ross Nieuwoudt and Melissa Ryan decided the agreement made during face-to-face talks last Tuesday was enough for the suspension of the strike, which started on Friday. The deal would have involved resident doctors – formerly junior doctors – getting access to hot meals when working overnight, having some exam fees paid, receiving funding for equipment such as stethoscopes and getting mess rooms and changes to the way their postgraduate training was organised. But when Nieuwoudt and Ryan relayed the potential deal to the full committee, they were told they could not approve it because it did not address the BMA's demand that resident doctors receive a 29% pay rise over the next few years. 'They were told by the committee that they could only talk about pay and none of this soft stuff matters. Wes was furious. They had come incredibly close to a deal,' a source said. Resident doctors in England receive basic pay of between £38,831 and £73,992, with extra payments worth up to 15% of their salaries for working at weekends. The failure to reach a deal underlines the gulf between the BMA and Streeting. He has refused to reopen negotiations over the 5.4% salary increase he has given resident doctors this year. But the union is adamant it will call off industrial action only if he agrees to talk money. The BMA denied that it was responsible for the failure to strike a deal and blamed Streeting. A spokesperson said: 'We cannot be clearer: it was the government that ended the talks. 'Resident doctors do not want to strike. However, we have been compelled to take action because Mr Streeting's ultimatum, which demanded we call off strikes in exchange for nothing more than further talks was simply not acceptable. 'We want to continue our negotiations with Mr Streeting and strongly urge him to get back around the table with a serious proposal, rather than a handful of platitudes.' NHS bosses warn the strikes could 'snowball' and even continue into next year. They fear that nurses, consultant doctors and other NHS staff might stage strikes too. Sir Jim Mackey, the chief executive of NHS England, told the Sunday Times: 'We know that continued disruption over the coming months could see a snowball effect for patients and for staff. 'We've seen that before and it has take a huge effort over the last year to build momentum back up on reducing waiting lists and times.' His deputy, David Probert, who is also chief executive of University College London hospitals trust, told the same paper: 'This could be a marathon. We could be doing this until Christmas or maybe beyond.' The BMA's 55,000 resident doctor members have a legal mandate to take strike action for six months, until 6 January. Kemi Badenoch has pledged to outlaw strikes by doctors, bringing them into line with the police and army, if she becomes prime minister. 'Doctors hold lives in their hands. No one should lose critical healthcare because of strikes but that's what's happening now', the opposition leader posted on X on Sunday. 'That's why a Conservative government led by me would ban doctors' strikes, just like we do the army and police.'
