The BMA is calling on the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, to focus his time and attention on offering a deal that will stop next week’s strikes going ahead, rather than making claims that strike action could cause the NHS to collapse. Resident doctors in England are currently being polled on whether an offer Mr Streeting put to them earlier this week is enough to avert next week’s strikes; the results of which are expected on Monday.
The offer, which includes important legislative changes to give priority to UK trained doctors applying for training posts, and repurposes 4,000 existing roles as training posts, does not include any offer on pay, despite Mr Streeting’s previous assurances that restoring resident doctors’ pay to their 2008 levels was “A journey.”
The BMA believes the Health Secretary is being utterly irresponsible in the way he is exploiting patients and public fears and making it seem as though the answer to the crisis he talks about lies solely with resident doctors when it absolutely does not.
BMA resident doctors committee chair Dr Jack Fletcher, said:
“It is horrible for anyone to be suffering with flu – we are not diminishing the impact of that – but Mr Streeting should not be scaremongering the public into thinking that the NHS will not be able to look after them and their loved ones.
“He is laying the blame for the failings of the NHS to cope with an outbreak of flu at the feet of resident doctors and yet he is strangely reluctant to turn that concern into action and come to the negotiating table. I will meet with him at any time he asks for to try to agree a deal to avert next week’s strikes. What is cruel and calculated is the way in which the Health Secretary fails to have any engagement with us outside strikes and then comes to us with an offer he knows is poor and expects us to just accept it within 24 hours.
“We do not have to strike next week if he puts an offer on the table that we can accept – not necessarily enough to end the dispute overall, but enough to stop the strike, we will do just that. Instead of offers to extend a mandate and talking of strikes in January, his focus should be on ending strikes altogether and working with resident doctors to do just that. We don’t need sticking plaster fixes; we need workable sustainable solutions.
“Mr Streeting holds all the cards to both postponing the strike and ending the dispute once and for all, but he seems more interested in political grandstanding and exploiting public fears than he does in doing anything useful that would stop the strikes."
During strikes, more senior doctors and those not taking industrial action, provide patient care for urgent and emergency services and there is a process in place for doctors to be called back into work should there be a major event or non-strike related emergency of some kind. However, in light of Mr Streeting’s claims about flu and the impact of strikes on the NHS, the BMA has written to NHS trust leaders to ask them to further ensure they have ‘rescheduled less urgent activity to prioritise the safety of urgent and emergency patient care.’
Ends.
Notes to editors
The BMA is a professional association and trade union representing and negotiating on behalf of all doctors in the UK. A leading voice advocating for outstanding health care and a healthy population. An association providing members with excellent individual services and support throughout their lives.
- The letter sent to NHS leaders can be found here.