Early on Friday, July 25, thousands of UK resident physicians went on strike for five days after late-night talks with the Labour administration failed to settle a long-running wage dispute. The British Medical Association (BMA) called for the strike, which is scheduled to end at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, July 30. As negotiations broke down without a deal, doctors were spotted on picket lines outside hospitals.
The BMA claims that after accepting a 22.3% pay increase offer over two years in September, just after Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour party assumed office, its members felt they had “no choice” but to go on strike once more because of the enormous “pay erosion” that has occurred since 2008. In order to restore real-term wage levels, the BMA is requesting a 29% salary increase.
On Friday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued a warning to striking physicians, saying that their actions will “cause real damage” and endanger patients. In a piece for The Times, Starmer stressed the additional burden on the already beleaguered National Health Service (NHS) and cautioned physicians against going “down this damaging road” with their union, saying, “Our NHS and your patients need you.” “Lives will be blighted by this decision,” he continued.
Nonetheless, the resident doctors argue that during the last twenty years, their actual compensation has decreased by more than twenty-one percent. Co-chairs of the BMA’s resident physicians committee, Melissa Ryan and Ross Nieuwoudt, said, “We’re not working 21 per cent less hard so why should our pay suffer?”
In a letter that appeared in The Telegraph, Health Minister Wes Streeting also urged the physicians to change their minds, claiming that the government “cannot afford to go further on pay this year.”
Since March 2023, this strike is the sixth time that resident physicians have taken such an action. Unless they are asked directly to reschedule, NHS England has recommended patients to keep going to their scheduled appointments. GP practices are anticipated to continue operating normally, while emergency care services, such as A&E and 999, will continue to operate.
