Resident doctors in England will strike for six days after Easter after rejecting what they said was the final offer by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, to end the long-running pay and jobs dispute.
The British Medical Association blamed the government for its decision to undertake its longest stoppage so far, from 7am on Tuesday 7 April to 6.59 on Monday 13 April.
This will be the 15th industrial action that resident doctors have staged in their campaign for “full pay restoration” and means they will strike for the fourth year running.
NHS leaders warned the strike would cost the health service an estimated £300m, lead to appointments being cancelled, and force patients to wait longer for tests, treatment and surgery.
Streeting said the BMA’s move was “enormously disappointing”. Resident doctors had rejected a “generous” offer and “landmark new deal for their profession” that would have brought higher salaries via “more frequent and fairer pay rises” and more training places.
Talks had been ongoing since early January, with both sides agreeing they had made progress over salaries and early career doctors’ ability to move into specialist medical training.
Dr Jack Fletcher, the chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee (RDC), said negotiations had been going well until two weeks ago “when the government began to shift the goalposts”.
The key issue was about how quickly doctors move through the NHS pay system, earning more as they do so – known as pay progression or “nodal point reform”. The RDC and Department of Health and Social Care had been discussing the speed at which that would happen as a way of meeting resident doctors’ longstanding demand for “full pay restoration”.
Resident doctors would have earned about £700m in total over the next three years if the deal had been agreed. They would have received £150m for that next year, a further £200m in 2027-28 and another £300m in 2028-29, on top of their annual pay rises.
Talks began to break down when the BMA made clear it wanted doctors to receive all the extra money during 2026-27, while the DHSC insisted that it should be spread over three years.
“When the government intimated two weeks ago that it would take three years for doctors to get the money, that was the beginning of the end,” a BMA source said.
Fletcher said the decision on Wednesday of the review body on the doctors and dentists remuneration committee to award medics in England a 3.5% pay rise next year had persuaded the BMA that the government was not going to meet their demands.
The first strike by resident – then called junior – doctors began on 13 March 2023. Streeting issued a 22% pay rise in July 2024 in an effort to end the dispute. However, the RDC has sought a further 26% rise, albeit spread over several years, to make up for the erosion in the real-terms value of their salaries since 2008-09.
The BMA and Streeting signalled their willingness to hold fresh talks to try to avert the strike action. It is unclear whether further negotiations would bear fruit as the doctors’ union has said it would only be able to reach a deal if the government agreed the full £700m in the financial year starting next week.
Streeting thanked the RDC leadership for its “constructive approach” during recent talks, which may be seen as encouraging.
