BMA rejects fresh offer to end doctor strikes
The British Medical Association has rejected a new government bid to end a long-running dispute with UK-based doctors.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has suggested covering exam fees and expanding training places faster than planned, writing on Wednesday that the union had been given until the end of Thursday to agree the package.
But the BMA said the proposal did not go far enough and the government should increase wages.
This comes ahead of a five-day strike by junior doctors, as junior doctors are now called, which begins on November 14. This will be the 13th strike since March 2023.
The new offer, made by Streeting in a letter to the BMA on Wednesday afternoon, follows a meeting with union leaders on Tuesday.
There were a number of measures, including covering the cost of compulsory examinations during the course of a doctor’s training, which could run into thousands of pounds, and covering membership fees of royal colleges.
The health minister had also promised to increase the number of training places faster than originally planned.
But the BMA told the BBC on Wednesday night that it had rejected the offer.
The 10-year NHS plan published at the beginning of the summer promised an extra 1,000 training places by 2028, but this will now be taken to 2,000 with an increase of 1,000 next year.
These are specialist training locations to which doctors move after the first two years of training.
At this stage this year there were more than 30,000 applications for 10,000 jobs, although some of these will be doctors from abroad.
The letter to BMA Streeting said: “The choice is clear. You can continue with unnecessary strike action, which will disrupt patients, undermine the recovery of the NHS and mean that at least some parts of this offer will become unaffordable.”
“Or you can end this damaging episode of industrial action and work in partnership with government to deliver both real change and improvements.”
The letter stated that after Thursday the NHS will need to start canceling treatments and bookings before the next strike.
The offer was made after months of dialogue between the union and the government, which began following the last round of strikes in July.
Streeting suggested he would not negotiate pay after junior doctors had received pay rises of around 30 per cent over the past three years.
But the BMA argued that despite the pay rises, junior doctors’ salaries were still a fifth lower than in 2008 when inflation was taken into account.
Responding to the proposal, the chairman of the BMA’s resident doctors committee, Dr. Jack Fletcher said it “doesn’t go far enough”.
Despite the expansion of training locations, junior doctors will still be unemployed at a key point in their training, he said.
“We have also been clear to the government that they can postpone the strikes for years if they are willing to offer a multi-year pay agreement that will realign wages over time.
“Unfortunately, Mr Streeting still does not want to move, despite promising a ride at a fair wage.”
The strike next week is expected to cause serious disruptions, especially in hospitals.
Physician assistants represent nearly half of the medical workforce and range from doctors who have just graduated from college to those with up to a decade of experience.
They will move out of both emergency and routine care, with senior doctors brought in to provide cover.
While the NHS tried to keep as many routine services running as possible during the latest strike, thousands of operations and appointments still had to be postponed.
