Potential for longer strikes stretching over a year if government fails to negotiate with junior doctors, sources warn
The strike by junior doctors could last all the way to the next election, a senior BMA source has told the Guardian.
Junior doctors’ leaders were considering an escalation of their industrial action to force the government to negotiate which could mean longer walkouts stretching over another year, it was reported by The Guardian.
Today, junior doctors in England begin a four-day walkout which is expected to be the most disruptive in NHS history, already marking the ‘longest period of industrial action ever seen in the NHS’, Dr Vin Diwakar, a senior NHS doctor told BBC Breakfast.
It comes as Health Secretary Steve Barclay has failed to make a single offer to put a halt to the action, The British Medical Association (BMA) has said.
BMA sources suggested that if the government continues to ignore their members’ demands they will consider ramping up industrial action.
The decision for strike action follows a 26% erosion in junior doctors’ real-terms pay over the past 15 years, with three junior doctors earning just £66.55 between them for an appendix surgery, according to a new campaign by BMA.
The BMA are calling for pay restoration and a 35% pay rise to address the workforce retention crisis and reverse the pay cuts.
Dr Emma Runswick told BBC Breakfast this morning that the union are ‘happy to negotiate’ but that Steve Barclay, ‘isn’t willing to even talk to us’.
Runswick said the union had been asking the Health Secretary for ‘months and months’ to put forward a credible offer, and even said they would halt the action at short notice last week if a credible offer was put on the table.
The Health Secretary has been blasted this morning on social media for being on holiday during the strike action, and for his general absence from the dispute.
One BMA source told The Guardian that they will consider ramping up industrial action to try to force the government to negotiate.
“If there’s no movement, we’re looking at months and months of action. This could go all the way through to the next general election,” the senior BMA source said.
Another source told the newspaper that there was enough motivation and resources for junior doctors to maintain strike action for another year, whist another said a five-day strike could be on the cards.
61,000 junior doctors are taking action this week, resulting in the enforced cancellation of up to 350,000 outpatient appointments and operations.
In a new advertisement campaign, BMA have further shone a light on junior doctors’ pay, revealing that a doctor with one-years’ experience would earn just £14.09 an hour for a potentially life-saving procedure, and a doctor with seven-years’ experience £24.46 an hour.
Dr Jennifer Barclay, a surgical doctor in the North West, said there was nothing ‘junior’ about the work she has done as a doctor.
“I want the doctors treating my loved ones to be well rested and able to provide the best care possible”, said Dr Jennifer Barclay.
“I don’t want them to be burnt out, worried about paying the bills or up to £100,000 of debt or thinking about alternative careers whilst making life and death decisions.”
Other junior doctors have shared their harrowing experiences of struggling to cope with excessive workloads, burnout and battling against funding cuts.
Hannah Davenport is trade union reporter at Left Foot Forward
Left Foot Forward’s trade union reporting is supported by the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust
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