Resident doctors: Labour’s NHS betrayal sparks fresh strike

Resident doctors in England have announced that they’ll be walking out on strike next month. They’ll begin the industrial action at 7am on 14 November. The news comes after Labour’s complete failure to bring a credible offer to the table, regarding jobs and pay restoration.

England’s BMA (British Medical Association) resident doctors’ committee (RDC) has urged Wes Streeting to do the right thing. They want the health secretary to return with a sensible offer. One that would allow them to call off the strike.

So what has Streeting done in return? He’s accused the BMA of trying to “wreck” the NHS, and has called the strike a “slap in the face” for other hospital staff.

Resident doctors: ‘This is not where we wanted to be’

Resident doctors met with Streeting back on 13 October. They had hoped to forge a path forward by addressing pay erosion and job shortages. The RDC proposed either a multi-year pay deal or targeted in-year improvements to remedy these concerns.

Unfortunately, RDC chair Jack Fletcher announced that the health secretary failed to rise to the challenge of these issues. Fletcher made it clear that Streeting’s reaction was “disappointing but not unredeemable”, and urged him to return in good faith.

Dr Fletcher said:

This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with Government, pressing the health secretary to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed … a situation which cannot go on.

We talked with the Government in good faith – keen for the health secretary to see that a deal that included options to gradually reverse the cuts to pay over several years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the next four years.

We hoped the Government would see that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the public and our patients and would also help stop our doctors leaving the NHS.

More jobs, better pay

Two issues are at the heart of the doctor’s dispute with the government: job shortages and pay restoration. The BMA recently surveyed 4,401 resident doctors. The results revealed that a shocking 34% hadn’t been able to secure regular locum, or even just substantive employment, in time for August this year.

Likewise, NHS England stats have revealed that competition for GP specialty training posts is at an all-time high. Five doctors are applying for every one post available in England.

Dr Fletcher explained that:

Better employment prospects and restoring pay are a credible way forward that would work for doctors, work for Government and work for our patients. Sadly, while we want to get such a deal done, the Government seemingly, does not, leaving us with little option but to call for strike action.

That is disappointing, but it is not irredeemable. Wes Streeting inherited an NHS falling apart through decades of underinvestment, but restoring our pay over several years, along with concrete plans to create more jobs and training places would go a long way towards the start of a new and better health service.

We need the health secretary to step up, come forward with a proper offer on jobs, on pay. We need him to embrace change and make an NHS fit for doctors and fit for patients.

The UK Government promised 1,000 new specialty training places in its recent 10-year plan for the NHS. However, doctors told them that this will not be enough to match public demand. What’s more, the rate of job creation that Labour proposed is far too slow to be effective.

In a further insult to the NHS, the government has flatly refused to discuss solutions to pay. Doctors in England have seen their salaries slashed by around 21% in real terms since 2008.

As such, Dr Fletcher announced that:

Sadly the Government has not been willing to offer the kind of radical plan needed that would keep doctors in work and reduce waiting lists. Strike dates are the only possible outcome.

That is disappointing but it is not unrecoverable. After inheriting an NHS falling apart after decades of underinvestment, Mr Streeting has the opportunity to make a fix. A multi-year pay deal and a radical jobs plan can be the start of a new and better health service. And it is surely better than a future of yet more industrial action and longer waiting times for patients.

Wes Streeting: ‘a slap in the face’

Unfortunately, in return for the BMA’s call to engage in good faith, Streeting has doubled down on insulting the doctors he’s meant to represent. Repeating almost verbatim his earlier ridiculous claims, the health secretary wrote for the Independent:

It is a slap in the face for the rest of the NHS workforce who will be left picking up the pieces, and most of all their patients who will see treatment cancelled.

There is not a more pro-NHS, pro-resident doctor government waiting in the wings. If the BMA try to wreck the NHS’s recovery, the only person who benefits is Nigel Farage.

Given that Streeting can’t be bothered to come up with a new attack line, our reply here at the Canary remains the same. Labour-right politicians have one tactic: telling people that they have to back Labour, or someone worse will get in. What they continually fail to realise, however, is that this pathetic reasoning just doesn’t work anymore.

The BMA isn’t calling this strike because they want to “wreck” the NHS — why on earth would they? Streeting, on the other hand, has made it clear that he wants the private sector’s hooks sunk further into the health service. The vast majority of donations made to the health secretary have links to private health organisations. And, as a bonus, he gets absolutely furious when you point out those facts.

Patients will see their treatments cancelled. That’s one of the few true things Streeting has actually managed to say (much though we’re sure that pained him). What he fails to acknowledge, however, is that he has the power to stop those cancellations. That is, in fact, his fucking job.

Featured image via REUTERS/Maja Smiejkowska