The British Medical Association is acting like a cartel and its “antics” are endangering the NHS’s future, the health secretary has said before the latest doctors’ strike begins on Friday.
Wes Streeting launched his most strongly worded attack yet on the doctors’ union, coming close to accusing resident doctors in England of being greedy in their pay demands.
He told the BMA to “get real”, made clear that ministers would not be “held to ransom” and claimed the association wanted other workers to pay higher taxes to give doctors higher salaries but lobbied against medics being taxed more themselves.
His pointed comments received loud applause from an audience of NHS leaders, who are bracing themselves for the five-day strike by resident – formerly junior – doctors. It will be their 13th since they began a campaign for “full pay restoration” in March 2023.
Resident doctors’ salaries have risen by 28.9% over the last three years, but they want a further 26% over the next few years to make up for the erosion in the real-terms value of their pay since 2008.
Streeting said it had “become increasingly clear that the BMA is no longer a professional voice for doctors. They are increasingly behaving in cartel-like behaviour, and they threaten not just the recovery of the NHS under this government, they threaten the future of the NHS, full stop. And I think that is a morally reprehensible position to be in.”
He told the annual conference of the hospitals group NHS Providers: “You look at the state of the public finances and the sorts of choices we’re making, especially for the NHS. Let me tell you, when we ask some of the wealthier to pay more, some of the most effective lobbyists against paying higher tax are the BMA consultants’ committee and the BMA pensions committee. So what they effectively do is say: ‘We want other people to pay the higher salaries for doctors.’
“And as much as, as a cancer survivor, I think my surgeon’s worth his weight in gold, we have to be honest and realistic about the challenges in the system, the challenges of public finances and the challenges facing every family, and it’s time for the BMA to get real.”
The most recent figures show that the average salary among doctors as a whole in England is £88,269, with consultants – senior medics – typically earning £127,540. Separate figures show resident doctors’ basic salaries before overtime range from £38,831 to £73,992.
Streeting said the NHS’s 1.5 million-strong workforce included staff “many of whom have not had a pay rise anything like what resident doctors have had, and many of whom, at the height of their career earnings, will never earn as much as the lowest-paid doctor”.
NHS trust leaders are hugely anxious about the disruption this week’s strike will cause to the speed and quality of the care they provide, especially with hospitals already busy with the unusually early arrival of flu.
One trust chief executive warned that during a strike “you’re not as focused on treating everybody as well as you could … There is a risk that people will die who wouldn’t otherwise have come to harm.”
The BMA has been approached for a response.
