\n<\/p>\n
Resident doctors in England will strike for six days after Easter after rejecting what they said was the final offer by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, to end the long-running pay and jobs dispute.<\/p>\n
The British Medical Association blamed the government for its decision to undertake its longest stoppage so far, from 7am on Tuesday 7 April to 6.59 on Monday 13 April.<\/p>\n
This will be the 15th industrial action that resident doctors have staged in their campaign for \u201cfull pay restoration\u201d and means they will strike for the fourth year running.<\/p>\n
NHS leaders warned the strike would cost the health service an estimated \u00a3300m, lead to appointments being cancelled, and force patients to wait longer for tests, treatment and surgery.<\/p>\n
Streeting said the BMA\u2019s move was \u201cenormously disappointing\u201d. Resident doctors had rejected a \u201cgenerous\u201d offer and \u201clandmark new deal for their profession\u201d that would have brought higher salaries via \u201cmore frequent and fairer pay rises\u201d and more training places.<\/p>\n
Talks had been ongoing since early January, with both sides agreeing they had made progress over salaries and early career doctors\u2019 ability to move into specialist medical training.<\/p>\n
Dr Jack Fletcher, the chair of the BMA\u2019s resident doctors committee (RDC), said negotiations had been going well until two weeks ago \u201cwhen the government began to shift the goalposts\u201d.<\/p>\n
The key issue was about how quickly doctors move through the NHS pay system, earning more as they do so \u2013 known as pay progression or \u201cnodal point reform\u201d. The RDC and Department of Health and Social Care had been discussing the speed at which that would happen as a way of meeting resident doctors\u2019 longstanding demand for \u201cfull pay restoration\u201d.<\/p>\n
Resident doctors would have earned about \u00a3700m in total over the next three years if the deal had been agreed. They would have received \u00a3150m for that next year, a further \u00a3200m in 2027-28 and another \u00a3300m in 2028-29, on top of their annual pay rises.<\/p>\n
Talks began to break down when the BMA made clear it wanted doctors to receive all the extra money during 2026-27, while the DHSC insisted that it should be spread over three years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the government intimated two weeks ago that it would take three years for doctors to get the money, that was the beginning of the end,\u201d a BMA source said.<\/p>\n
Fletcher said the decision on Wednesday of the review body on the doctors and dentists remuneration committee to award medics in England a 3.5% pay rise next year had persuaded the BMA that the government was not going to meet their demands.<\/p>\n
The first strike by resident \u2013 then called junior \u2013 doctors began on 13 March 2023. Streeting issued a 22% pay rise in July 2024 in an effort to end the dispute. However, the RDC has sought a further 26% rise, albeit spread over several years, to make up for the erosion in the real-terms value of their salaries since 2008-09.<\/p>\n
The BMA and Streeting signalled their willingness to hold fresh talks to try to avert the strike action. It is unclear whether further negotiations would bear fruit as the doctors\u2019 union has said it would only be able to reach a deal if the government agreed the full \u00a3700m in the financial year starting next week.<\/p>\n
Streeting thanked the RDC leadership for its \u201cconstructive approach\u201d during recent talks, which may be seen as encouraging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Resident doctors in England will strike for six days after Easter after rejecting what they said was the final offer by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, to end the long-running pay and jobs dispute. The British Medical Association blamed the government for its decision to undertake its longest stoppage so far, from 7am on Tuesday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[8915,366,311,1990,1040,3549,3001,23989,1349],"class_list":{"0":"post-47431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-dispute","9":"tag-doctors","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-offer","12":"tag-pay","13":"tag-rejecting","14":"tag-resident","15":"tag-sixday","16":"tag-strike"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47431","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=47431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}