\n<\/p>\n
Public support for strikes by resident doctors has collapsed, with barely one in four voters now backing their campaign of industrial action, according to the latest polling, which reveals the deepening unpopularity of further NHS strikes.<\/p>\n
Previously strong approval by voters for strikes by junior doctors \u2013 as resident doctors were known until last year \u2013 has halved from 52% a year ago to just 26%.<\/p>\n
The fall may be linked to the fact that resident doctors in England got a 22% salary uplift from the Labour government soon after it took power in July 2024 but now want another 29% \u2013 spread over several years \u2013 to restore the real-terms value of their pay to what it was in 2008.<\/p>\n
The new polling by Ipsos, shared exclusively with the Guardian, will increase pressure on Wes Streeting, the health secretary, to reach a compromise with the British Medical Association (BMA) before a planned five-day walkout by tens of thousands of resident doctors on 25 July.<\/p>\n
Two in five (41%) of British adults oppose the strikes and 24% are neutral. Slightly more Labour voters (35%) back the doctors\u2019 action than oppose it (32%), with 24% neutral.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf resident doctors do take strike action this summer, it will be the first time for some years that they go on industrial action without broad-based support from the public, including from Labour voters,\u201d said Gideon Skinner, Ipsos\u2019s senior director of UK politics.<\/p>\n
The survey findings also contain bad news for Streeting and Keir Starmer, the prime minister. More than two in five people (43%) think the government is doing a bad job at negotiating with the trade unions. An increase of 7% since Ipsos asked that question last October and almost twice as many as those who thought that (23%) last August.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough there is increasing criticism of the way the Labour government is handling negotiations with unions, Labour is not yet receiving the negative ratings that Rishi Sunak\u2019s government saw [when 60% disapproved of its handling of union pay claims], while public perceptions towards the wider picture of public finances are also likely to be playing a part,\u201d Skinner added.<\/p>\n
A separate new poll by YouGov reported by the Times found that 36% of voters support the doctors\u2019 strikes while 49% are opposed.<\/p>\n
When the Guardian interviewed the new BMA leader, Dr Tom Dolphin, last Wednesday, before Ipsos\u2019s findings emerged, he acknowledged that public support had fallen and that voters \u201cwill wonder\u201d why more strikes are looming.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoctors have been hugely grateful to the public for their support the whole way through this dispute but I completely understand how people might be feeling now, although there are plenty who do still support us.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one likes to have their lives and routines disrupted and particularly when it comes to health and wellbeing, we know people can feel worried.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe public will remember what the last round of strikes meant for them and their families and now they\u2019ve seen resident doctors getting a pay rise, people will wonder why it\u2019s happening all over again. The reason why is that the [22%] pay rise was only part of the journey to restoring the value of our pay that we\u2019re campaigning for.\u201d<\/p>\n
But people would understand why resident doctors were pursuing such a large increase and said media coverage of it was encouraging \u201cjealousy\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n
Asked how seeking a 29% pay rise soon after getting a 22% uplift looks to the public, Dolphin said: \u201cI think the public should expect their doctors to be valued properly. I think if you explain to people, when we do explain to people in individual conversations about: \u2018What would you do if you had had a 30% pay cut? What would you feel about it? How would you react?\u2019, people do understand [the BMA seeking] that [pay ask].<\/p>\n
\u201cFundamentally, when you talk to people about the unfairness of that and that loss of value, people get it. They understand and they would do the same if they could to restore that value.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another recent poll, by the Good Growth Foundation, found that even fewer voters endorse the resident doctors walkouts \u2013 23% \u2013 than the 26% identified by Ipsos.<\/p>\n
Ipsos interviewed a representative online sample of 1,023 adults aged 18 to 75 across Great Britain on Wednesday and Thursday, just after news of the five-day strike emerged.<\/p>\n
Wes Streeting said: \u201cPublic support for strikes has collapsed, following the 28.9% pay rise resident doctors have received thanks to this government. Patients are begging resident doctors not to walk out on them.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of rushing down this unreasonable path, the BMA need to pause and think about the real risk of people losing trust in doctors and the damage that would do to our NHS and the entire medical profession.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy plea continues to be for the BMA to listen to the public on this, and the majority of resident doctors who did not vote for these strikes. Call off these unnecessary and unfair strikes, work with the government to improve working conditions for resident doctors, and let\u2019s keep rebuilding our NHS.\u201d<\/p>\n
The BMA resident doctors committee co-chairs, Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, said: \u201cResident doctors\u2019 pay is down by more than 20% in real terms compared to 17 years ago. We\u2019re sure the public would agree that they are not worth a fifth less, nor working a fifth less hard, than they were then.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we\u2019re sure the public want a medical workforce and health service that\u2019s there for them in the future, and don\u2019t want doctors to leave the NHS or the country for better pay and conditions elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaying a newly qualified doctor the \u00a322.67 an hour they are owed is both fair and deserved. That we have had to resort to this to make ourselves heard is a failure that the government can easily fix.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Public support for strikes by resident doctors has collapsed, with barely one in four voters now backing their campaign of industrial action, according to the latest polling, which reveals the deepening unpopularity of further NHS strikes. Previously strong approval by voters for strikes by junior doctors \u2013 as resident doctors were known until last year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[919,505,3420,366,3000,912,177,3001,85,694],"class_list":{"0":"post-10606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-action","9":"tag-ahead","10":"tag-collapses","11":"tag-doctors","12":"tag-fresh","13":"tag-industrial","14":"tag-public","15":"tag-resident","16":"tag-strikes","17":"tag-support"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}