Keir Starmer has said resident doctors would be irresponsible to push ahead with strikes next week after NHS England said a surge of “super flu” cases had left the service facing its worst-case scenario this winter.
Ministers presented the British Medical Association with a fresh offer on training places on Wednesday night in a last-ditch attempt to avert strikes.
The BMA is consulting its members on the proposals, raising hopes of a breakthrough, despite its leaders saying they do nothing to address their concerns on pay.
The prime minister urged resident doctors – formerly known as junior doctors – to “do the responsible thing, accept the offer that’s on the table, and we can all move forward”.
“They are being irresponsible in my view. We have already put in place quite a significant pay rise,” he told reporters.
“There are other issues that they’re concerned about, which we’ve been listening to, and we put an offer on the table to deal with those issues, but that offer can only go forward if they don’t take strike action, particularly in the run-up to Christmas, particularly when we’ve got a problem with flu.
“I think for many resident doctors, I think in their heart of hearts, they probably don’t want to do this.”
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, pledged to double the number of extra places that early career doctors in England can apply for in order to train in their chosen area of specialism.
BMA leaders said although the offer was a “mixed bag” they would survey their membership on whether to call off planned five-day strike action due to start next Wednesday.
NHS England warned it was facing a “worst-case scenario” in December with a surge of “super flu” as it released its latest hospital figures on Thursday morning.
The service said an average of 2,660 patients a day were in hospital with flu last week, the highest ever for this time of year, and up 55% on the previous week.
The president of the Society for Acute Medicine, Vicky Price, said a “flu-nami” was hitting the NHS but that it was “a sadly familiar picture of a system under relentless strain”.
“This week we have seen clinicians reviewing patients in waiting rooms due to lack of space, and cupboards used as temporary clinical areas – a new low for patient care standards,” she said.
The chief executive of the hospitals group NHS Providers, Daniel Elkeles, said the response from the BMA “does give us some hope” and that there was “a realistic potential that next week’s strikes could be called off”.
“The government have really listened … and I think what they’ve put on the table is a huge move,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “This has been a dispute that has gone on for a very long time. Someone had to do something pretty significant to find a resolution and I really hope this is it.”
However, union leaders said the offer did not include more pay for this year or address resident doctors’ demand for a 26% salary rise over the next few years, on top of the 28.9% increase they have had since 2023.
Dr Jack Fletcher, the chair of the BMA, said the proposals were a “mixed bag” and lacking in detail but that the union was willing to explore them “as a potential solution”.
“We’re putting this offer neutrally and factually to members,” he told the Today programme. “There are some parts of this offer that contain things like important legislation, some way of fixing this jobs crisis, but let’s be clear, there are no more doctors at the end of this … We are still seeing a net zero in terms of an increase or decrease of doctors.
“There is nothing in this offer which goes in any way towards the significant pay erosion that we’ve had over the last 15-plus years. We’ve got a health secretary who’s pushing real-terms pay cuts on doctors in April next year.”
Fletcher said the union was nonetheless putting the offer to its members because it “reaches a threshold” for doing so and “there is important legislation in there”.
He said the union would carry out an externally verified survey of doctors and that if a simple majority said the offer should be explored further and strikes called off, next week’s action would be cancelled. At that point, the offer would be put formally to BMA members.
Dr Shivam Sharma, a deputy co-chair of the BMA, said the union was in “a dispute on both pay and jobs” and that “this offer does absolutely nothing on pay”. “I do find it difficult to see members accepting this offer,” he told Times Radio.
