‘Completely unprecedented’: resident doctors to press ahead with strike | NHS

Wes Streting condemned the decision of resident doctors to put himself forward “recklessly and unnecessarily” with a strike action, saying that it is “completely unprecedented in the history of British unionism”.

In an ardent statement after the British Medical Association (BMA) said that there was no offer on the table which could avoid industrial action on Friday, the Secretary of Health said that resident doctors had received changes in working conditions and career progress but had chosen to continue with industrial action.

Street said that the strike decision has shown a “complete disdain for patients and the wider recovery of the NHS”.

The BMA said that the offer to talk about working conditions was not sufficient when the main concern of doctors was the salary, saying that despite talks, they “did not receive an offer that would respond to the scale of these challenges”.

“While we were happy to discuss the problems of non-payment that affect the finances of doctors, we have always been frank that it is the basis of a remuneration dispute,” added the BMA.

Whitehall’s sources said there was fury within the BMA Ministry of Health and Social Care and suggested that the rupture of relations was so serious that there could be additional discussions there only after the action of strike.

Streetting would have made offers on working conditions and financial pressures, including the cost of exams and work to resolve the bottlenecks where qualified doctors are left unemployed.

“We would have continued to speak until the last moment,” said a source of the government, and suggested that the union of doctors had known from the start that new salary increases were out of the question. “They led us to believe that there was an agreement with which to work.”

Up to 50,000 doctors resident in England, formerly known as the junior doctors, should join industrial action from 7 a.m. on July 25 at 7 a.m. on July 30. They require a salary increase of 29% which, according to them, would restore the wages that have been eroded in the last decade.

Street said the talks had been constructive, but that goodwill had been wasted by the decision not to suspend the action of strike.

“After a constructive discussion with the BMA representatives in recent days, the opportunity has been there for the BMA to work with us on a range of options that would have made a real difference for the working conditions of resident doctors and have created additional roles to face the bottlenecks that retain their career progress,” he said. “Instead, they opted with impruding and unnecessarily for a strike action.”

The Secretary of Health said that the BMA “would not have lost anything by taking the offer to postpone strike measures to negotiate a whole that would improve the professional life of resident doctors”.

“By refusing to do so, they will cause unnecessary disruption for patients, will exert additional pressure on their colleagues in the NHS and will not take the opportunity to improve their own working conditions,” added Streting.

He said that there was no more room for the government to be in the process of remuneration and that the requests were unacceptable and unaffordable. “My attention will now be in terms of prejudice to patients and support NHS staff at work,” he said.

“After an increase in salary of 28.9% in the past three years and the highest increase in remuneration in the public sector two consecutive years, the action action is completely unjustified, completely unprecedented in the history of British unionism and shows a complete disdain for patients and the broader recovery of the NHS.”

In a statement confirming that strikes would continue, the co -chairs of the BMA resident doctors committee, Dr. Melissa Ryan and Dr. Ross Nieuwoudt, said they had tried to “reach an emergency compromise” but that the offer from the Ministry of Health had been inadequate.

“We have always said that no doctor wanted to strike and everything it would take to prevent it from being a credible path to pay the restoration offered by the government. We came to talks in good faith, wishing to explore real solutions with the problems with which doctors resident today,” they said. “Unfortunately, we have not received an offer that would meet these challenges.”

The committee’s co -chairs said that more than a fifth of the remuneration of resident doctors had been eroded since 2008 and that “the simplest and direct means … consists in increasing our salary”. It was clearly out of the table in the talks, said the BMA.

“We had hoped that there would be enough new ideas on the relief of these charges that we could make progress in these talks. Disappointing, what we have seen would not have been important enough to change the daily financial situation of our members. ”

Before industrial action, a row also broke out between the management of the NHS and the union of doctors, who had alleged that the NHS endangered patient safety by not canceling a planned treatment during a next strike.

During previous strikes, the urgent and emergency services were equipped with doctors of the High Hospital, including consultants and pre-plane works have been largely postponed.

But the BMA said that hospital managers had been informed of continuing with non -urgent care scheduled for the next dispute, which they say, could make doctors overloaded and put patients in danger. NHS Providers, an organization of membership for NHS Trusts, said it was BMA strike action endangering patient safety.

The director general of NHS suppliers, Daniel Elkeles, said that the decision to take the lead with industrial action was “a crushing blow for patients and for the NHS” and said that the trustees retained the cancellations when there was the realistic prospect of a breakthrough.

“They will now do everything they can to make sure that there is less-and in some cases much less, the cancellations than the last time,” he said. “We urge resident doctors to help trusts minimize damage by informing them of their plans for strike days.

“For example, we must make sure that there are enough staff for all cancer, transplant and maternity care that cannot and must not be delayed. Another huge concern is the cost. It is essential that consultants provide coverage take NHS remuneration rates rather than insist on BMA swollen rates that are simply not disorderly.

“All the discussion routes should be exhausted before turning to strikes. We say to the BMA: think again and go back from this extremely damaging decision.”

Responding to the news that the strike of resident doctors would go ahead, Rachel Power, the Director General of the Patient Association, said: “Delays and unacceptable obstacles to access to care that patients have needed have been reality for years. This last strike adds even more uncertainty for people waiting in pain, with anxiety, and unanswered, and will leave more vulnerable and not counted patients as health and well-being and well-being. ”.