Junior doctors must call off a wave of strikes and withdraw an “unreasonable” demand for a 35 per cent pay hike, Downing Street said today as hospital bosses raised fears that A&E could be unsafe at night during the walkouts.
Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson said the British Medical Association‘s request for a 35 per cent pay rise was “completely out of step” with other pay settlements in the public sector.
It came as former Tory health minister Lord Bethell told The Independent that junior doctors are behaving like the Socialist Workers Party with the “bonkers” pay hike demand. He praised healthcare professionals but said the BMA is “losing a lot of credit for itself” with its latest industrial action.
A walkout by junior doctors began at 7am and will continue until Saturday morning, with experts claiming it will be “the most disruptive” industrial action in NHS history.
It has been estimated that some 350,000 appointments and operations have been rescheduled as a result of the action as senior doctors and other medics who are not on strike have been diverted to cover services such as A&E and maternity care.
“We call on the BMA and junior doctors to cease their strikes and revise their starting point for negotiations, which is 35 per cent, which we continue to believe is unreasonable. It is not affordable to the British taxpayer,” the spokesperson said.
The No 10 official added: “We cannot negotiate from the starting point. We’re ready to sit down, if they remove that 35 per cent starting point and cease industrial action.”
Lord Bethell told The Independent: “I have a lot of respect for healthcare professionals, and this is not the way a serious organisation like the BMA should be deporting itself.
“I do not know how anyone could sit at a table with people who are demanding a 35 per cent pay rise. That is not a reasonable place for grown ups to begin a conversation.”
He added: “They are behaving like the RMT [union]. If this was a bunch of Marxist train drivers I would take it in my stride but junior doctors who are making a fortune and have a massive pension behaving like the Socialist Workers Party is just appalling.”
Unions and the government were urged to negotiate as NHS bosses warned that there is a heightened risk to patient safety during the walkouts.
NHS Providers, which represents health service trusts, highlighted the difficulty hospital bosses are facing in trying to ensure nightshift medical rotas are fully staffed this week.
“Getting through today is just the start. Trust leaders are worried about securing adequate cover for the night shifts ahead. This is going to be a very long, difficult week for the NHS,” said Miriam Deakin, the head of policy at NHS Providers.
“Keeping patients as safe as possible, trusts’ No 1 priority, will be even harder than in previous strikes so it’s all hands on deck.”
Lord Bethell also called on the union to instead put forward proposals to deal with the UK’s ongoing healthcare crisis. “The idea that a 35 per cent pay rise for junior doctors is going to suddenly improve the health system is bonkers and wrong,” he added.
The strikes centre around a pay row between the BMA and government, with the union claiming junior doctors in England have seen a 26 per cent real-terms pay cut since 2008/09 because pay rises have been below inflation.
The union has asked for a full pay restoration that the government said would amount to a 35 per cent pay rise.
Meanwhile, health secretary Steve Barclay told reporters that the strikes had been timed to “maximise disruption”, with patients being put at “greater risk” as the NHS faces increased demand following the Bank Holiday Easter weekend.
He said: “Well, I deeply regret these strikes and in particular the timing, which been timed deliberately coming straight after Easter, the fact that the BMA junior doctors have asked their members not to tell NHS managers whether they intended to go on strike or not – making contingency planning more difficult – and also their refusal to agree on any national exemptions.
“Other health unions like the Royal College of Nursing agreed national exemptions, particularly, for example, for cancer patients as so that those patients weren’t impacted.
“The junior doctors committee has refused any national exemptions and obviously that puts patients at greater risk, but we’re working very hard to mitigate those impacts.”
His comments came after professor Sir Stephen Powis, national medical director for the NHS in England, told Times Radio : “A few weeks ago, when we had three days of strike action by junior doctors, we saw over 175,000 appointments and procedures having to be rescheduled, so my expectation is that we will see more and perhaps considerably more than that this time.
“Our focus has been on providing cover for absent junior doctors – they make up to half of the medical workforce – so consultants will be doing that along with other members of staff.
“But it does mean that we’re focusing on emergency services – and of course those staff who are covering can’t be in two places at once so that does mean disruption and cancellations and rescheduling, I’m afraid.”
Asked about comments that the strike will cause disruption for at least a month, he said: “It will certainly last weeks.
“We’ve asked hospitals to reschedule appointments as quickly as possible but this is going to cause unparalleled disruption, so it will take some time.”
Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chairman of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, said: “Strikes are by nature designed to be disruptive, to put pressure on the government to come to the table to ultimately work towards an end to this dispute.
“Where we go forward is, of course, reserving the right for further industrial action if the government doesn’t negotiate with us, but that’s all we want them to do.
“We just want them to come to the table in an honest and meaningful way.
“But of course if they don’t, then we would reserve the right for further industrial action.”
He added: “The government has not even tried to meet us anywhere in the middle, it hasn’t given us a counter-offer at all.
“We’ve extended our olive branch many times and Mr Barclay is continuing to kick the can down the road, which is why we need to see some goodwill from him.”
