Health secretary failed to stop Junior Doctors’ strike in England
Following a meeting which took place yesterday, Steve Barclay was unsuccessful at attempting to avert junior doctor strike action.
Health unions in England have been invited by the government to discuss formal pay talks, but following a meeting on Thursday, the British Medical Association (BMA) said the meeting with the Health Secretary was a ‘façade’ and accused him of stalling tactics.
Mr Barclay informed the BMA that he was under no authority or ‘green light’ to renegotiate pay. Following this, leaders of the BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee said they are ‘frustrated’ by the decision.
Last week the union announced a 72-hour walkout, which will take place from 13th March, after more than 36,200 doctors voted in favour of strikes.
The BMA said that over the past 15 years, junior doctors have seen their pay erode by more than 26% with newly qualified doctors starting on £14 per hour and that restoring pay would mean increasing that sum to £19.
In a joint statement, Dr Rob Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, who co-chair the committee, said: ‘It is beyond belief that the person in Government appointed to look after our health service, and the staff in it, has no power to put any kind of deal on the table.
‘We went [into yesterday’s] meeting with every intention of entering into negotiations with a health secretary who has known from day one of his tenure what was at stake – tens of thousands of Junior Doctors in England who are demoralised, exhausted, and vastly underpaid for the valuable work they do.
‘Instead, he wanted to go over those details once more but did not or could not offer any kind of deal, or even start negotiations.’
Against this backdrop, The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said last month they were pausing strike action to begin ‘intensive talks’ with the government over ‘pay, terms and conditions, and productivity enhancing reforms’. It is still unclear what the offer may be.
The government, however, says any NHS pay offers must be affordable for taxpayers. Ambulance workers, nurses and physios have joined junior doctors with constructed organised walkouts over pay.
Nurses and other NHS staff – except doctors – received an average 4.75% pay rise this year, but unions say salaries need lifting higher to compete with the current rising costs of inflation. However, the Treasury has previously stated any increase above 5% would be unaffordable and risk fuelling inflation levels.
Photo by MedicAlert UK