Why doctors are striking this week as Streeting says NHS is ‘at risk’

Junior doctors in England have launched almost a week-long strike action over NHS rows over jobs and pay.

The latest round of industrial action announced by the British Medical Association (BMA) began at 7am on April 7, just after the Easter bank holiday weekend, and will last until 6.59am on April 13, the union said.

This marks the 15th strike by junior doctors, previously called junior doctors, since March 2023, following a similar strike in December. Doctors are calling for salaries to be restored to 2008 levels, representing a 26 percent increase.

The move comes after talks between the government and doctors’ union collapsed in March. The government last month proposed a package of measures to the BMA, including covering out-of-pocket costs such as examination fees, faster salary progression and extra specialist training positions.

However, the government has suggested it will not accept the BMA’s position on wages.

Health secretary Wes Streeting said on Tuesday: “Rather than accept this offer, the BMA has rejected it outright and announced immediate strike action. This not only undermines junior doctors’ pay rises and available training positions, but also puts the recovery of the NHS at risk.”

Jack Fletcher, chairman of the BMA Resident Doctors Committee, said last week that ministers had “effectively moved the goalposts on the deal at the last minute”.

“Removing potential doctors’ roles is clearly bad for patients at a time when corridor care and GP queues are already putting the NHS under pressure,” he said.

He later added: “We have consistently maintained that we are prepared to postpone industrial action if a genuinely credible offer is presented. This remains the case now, until industrial action and for any period.”

Here’s everything you need to know about the dispute so far:

Why are junior doctors on strike?

Junior doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, are doctors who are qualified in their early years of training. One fifth have completed the first two foundation years, while the remainder are in basic or specialist registrar training.

The agreed salary for basic trainees is between £38,831 and £44,439, with specialist training salaries rising to £73,992. This includes the 5.4 per cent increase given last year but does not include the London weighting.

Physician assistant salaries increased nearly 30 percent over the past three years, from 2023-2024 to 2025-2026; This includes a 22.3 per cent increase since Labor came to power. But the BMA says doctors need an extra 26 per cent increase over the next few years to restore their salaries after inflation has eroded in real terms since 2008.

At the current 5.4 per cent increase, the BMA says doctors’ wages will not be clawed back for 12 years or until 2036.

The BMA is calling for salaries to be increased over a flexible negotiation period to between £47,308 and £54,274 for foundation doctors and up to a maximum of £90,989 for top-level specialist trainees.

There are also calls from junior doctors to reduce competition for residency training positions; many struggle to find work even if they have worked in the NHS.

What did the government offer?

The government submitted a last-minute offer to the BMA in December and another in March.

Mr Streeting laid out the key elements of the proposal in a letter to BMA members on 27 March. These included reforming the pay structure to make pay increase opportunities more frequent and base pay increases averaging 4.9 percent.

This will ensure junior doctors are on average 35.2 per cent better off than four years ago, and the starting salary for new graduates entering the profession will be around £12,000 higher than in 2022-2023, the health secretary wrote.

At the same time, the lowest paid FY1 and FY2 doctors have seen their salaries rise by at least 6.2 per cent and 7.1 per cent respectively this year, taking average earnings to over £52,000.

The basic salary of the most experienced junior doctors would rise to £77,348, with average earnings to exceed £100,000.

The government has also pledged to create between 4,000 and 4,500 additional specialist training posts over the next 3 years; This includes 1,000 tasks introduced this year to overcome bottlenecks.

There were more than 30,000 applications for 10,000 of these jobs in 2025, some of which came from abroad.