England’s junior doctors begin longest single strike over low pay
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Junior doctors walked off the job in their thousands in England on Wednesday morning, dealing a deeper blow to the National Health Service (NHS) that is already overwhelmed and raising alarm over the plethora of canceled medical appointments and surgeries.
The strike is scheduled to last from 7am on January 3 to 7am on January 9, and if it goes that far, it would be the longest single walkout in NHS history.
The British Medical Association (BMA’s) junior doctors committee (JDC) has implored the Health Secretary to make a credible offer on pay which could bring an end to strikes.
The New York Times reports the doctors have been clashing with the government over wages and work conditions since December 2022.
The strike comes at an especially difficult moment for the health service, when the flu and other illnesses are filling up emergency rooms, outpatient clinics and other medical facilities.
The junior doctors – qualified physicians who are still in clinical training – have been seeking a 35 percent wage increase, which they say is needed to counteract a more than 25 percent cut in real wages since 2008.
The government has settled pay disputes with nurses and ambulance workers, but its standoff with the union that represents the young doctors has been particularly intractable.
The waiting list for procedures at N.H.S. hospitals has reached 7.7 million people, up from 4.6 million before the coronavirus pandemic.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged last year to cut waiting times, making it one of five bedrock goals of his Conservative government. Instead, the list has lengthened by 300,000 people.
Analysts estimate that previous strikes by senior and junior doctors added about 210,000 people to the waiting list because of missed appointments.
The latest walkout could swell the number of canceled appointments and operations to more than a million, they said. These range from elective knee replacements to urgent cancer surgery.
“We’re continuing to see a massive cumulative impact on N.H.S. services and our hard-working staff as they maintain safe patient services while tackling a record backlog,” Chris Streather, the regional medical director for the N.H.S. in London, said in a statement.
“This time of year is always very busy for the N.H.S., and six days is the longest time that doctors have gone on strike.”
Junior doctors account for roughly half the physicians in the N.H.S., so when they walk out, it ripples through system, from emergency rooms to operating theaters.
The doctors complain about long hours, relentless pressure and pay that has failed to keep pace with double-digit inflation, though that has eased recently – issues that have afflicted other health systems, including those in the United States.
For Mr. Sunak, whose party is trailing the Labour Party by double-digits in the polls, the woes in the N.H.S. pose an acute political risk.
While the cost-of-living crisis has ebbed slightly, analysts say the perception that Britain’s public services are broken could spell doom in an election that Mr. Sunak said will happen this year.
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BMA demands pay offer that would end strikes
The BMA urged Health Secretary Victoria Atkins to make a credible offer on pay which could end strikes.
“Doctors would have liked to start the new year with the hope of an offer on pay that would lead to a better-staffed health service and a better-valued profession,” BMA junior doctors committee co-chairs Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said in a statement.
“Instead, doctors are still set to be paid £15.50 an hour and are being forced to go back out on strike by a Government that cannot get its act together and make the reasonable offer on pay it knows it eventually must.
“We spent the holiday period hoping we would get the ‘final offer’ that the Health Secretary had promised us last year. Sadly, we have received no such offer despite repeatedly saying we would meet for talks any time over Christmas.
“We will continue to offer to meet throughout these coming strikes. All we need is a credible offer we can put to members and we can call off these strikes.
“Morale across the health service is at an all-time low. 15 years of pay erosion have meant a 26% real terms pay cut for an increasingly undervalued workforce who are overstretched and left yet again to carry the burden of years of the neglect and decline this Government has overseen.
“Many will be wondering if their chosen career is still worth pursuing – the Government has the chance to show those doctors they still have a future working in this country.
“This strike marks another unhappy record for the NHS – the longest single walkout in its history. But as we have said all along, there is no need for any records to fall: we can call off this strike now if we get an offer from Government that we can put to members.
“Doctors want 2024 to be the start of a renewed workforce which can finally provide high quality care for patients again – it is for the Government to put forward a credible offer and facilitate that journey.”