Junior doctors strike in England despite risk of scoring ‘own goal’

Junior doctors in England will strike today for the 11th time over pay, amid concern in their union that a stoppage so close to the general election is an “own goal”.

Senior figures in the British Medical Association (BMA) believe the strike is pointless and “naive” and risks irritating Labour, which looks likely to be in power by next Friday and asked the union to call it off.

About 25,000 junior doctors are expected to refuse to work during the five-day stoppage, which begins at 7am today and runs until the same time next Tuesday, 2 July.

By the end of it, junior doctors will have been on strike for 44 days since they first took industrial action in March 2023 in pursuit of a 35% pay rise.

The 10 previous strikes have forced the NHS to cancel 1.4m outpatient appointments and operations and spend £1.7bn to minimise disruption.

NHS England expects the “widespread disruption to care” over the next five days to be worse than before because heat-related health problems are adding to the strain on many services. “This new round of strike action will again hit the NHS very hard,” said Prof Stephen Powis, its national medical director.

However, registrars – junior doctors just below the level of consultant – will continue to provide cancer care at hospitals in London affected by the Russian cyber-attack, after the BMA agreed to a request from NHS England to grant exemptions for them to do so.

But members of the BMA’s ruling council have said that the latest strike will achieve nothing aside from causing further problems for hospitals already under pressure.

One said: “I and none of the doctors I work with can understand what the strike is hoping to achieve. There’s no government to negotiate with. And the opposition health secretary has declared it will be his first priority in office to rectify it and called on the [junior doctors] to cancel it.

“Also, being willing to sacrifice five days’ salary for no tangible gain does not necessarily fit with a group of doctors who are seeking a 35% pay rise to allow them to be able to afford the basic bills.”

A second council member said: “There is a lot of concern about having a strike just before the election and support [for juniors’ strikes among consultants and GPs] is waning.”

Junior doctors will today picket hospitals around England, including in London, Birmingham, Nottingham and Liverpool. They will also protest outside Friarage hospital in North Yorkshire, which is close to the prime minister’s Richmond constituency office.

They will stage a rally outside Downing Street this afternoon.

Junior doctors have been pursuing a 35% pay rise to act as “full pay restoration” for the 26.2% fall in the value of their incomes they have seen since 2008-09.

The leaders of the BMA’s junior doctors committee (JDC) said today that they could call further strikes for this summer if the next government does not hold talks in a “timely manner”.

However, they have stressed in recent months that they would be happy for any significant progress towards their goal of “full pay restoration” to be phased in over a number of years. That has raised tentative hopes that the long-running and very disruptive dispute may soon be over.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, has said that increasing junior doctors’ pay would need to be a “journey not an event”. He has also said that he would not approve a 35% rise because if he did, “any trade union worth its salt” would then demand the same sum for its members.

Dr Robert Laurenson, the JDC co-chair, said: “He is talking about things like ‘journey not an event’. We’re happy to have a multiyear pay deal. He has seemingly heard that, and ‘journey not an event’ matches that.”

Dr Vivek Trivedi, the other co-chair, said: “The main thing I’ve taken away from discussions [with Labour] is that there is a willingness to try and at least engage in constructive and meaningful [talks]”.

He added: “If talks do not move in a timely manner, then of course our members would expect us to call for strike action.”

But influential figures in the BMA say that privately many consultants and GPs sympathise with their junior colleagues’ desire to secure a pay rise, but believe they have erred by striking so often and gaining no obvious ground as a result.

One senior figure said: “They should have called off this week’s strike because strategically it’s the wrong decision – like an own goal – because we have a new government coming in and they’ve indicated they’d like us to call it off.

“They should call off this strike, agree to meet the new ministerial team and see if they can salvage a deal, albeit not for 35%. Given the state of the NHS’s finances, there has to be give and take.”