Striking junior doctors in England say they still have public support

Striking junior doctors in England have insisted they retain the public’s support in their pay dispute with the government, despite the disruption to NHS care their stoppage has caused.

The co-leader of the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee blamed ministers for Wednesday’s strike, which began at 7am and will run until the same time on Saturday.

Persistent real-terms pay cuts for junior doctors, who are mostly medics in training below the level of consultant, would lead to even more of them opting to work abroad, Dr Vivek Trevedi predicted.

Hospitals in England have had to postpone outpatient appointments and operations during the three days of this week’s stoppage. Cheltenham general hospital has had to shut its A&E unit until Saturday because it said it had too few staff to operate it safely.

Recent talks between the BMA and Department of Health and Social Care failed to produce a deal to end the long-running dispute over junior doctors’ demand for a 35% pay rise.

Trevedi said the government’s offer to junior doctors – an average 3% rise on top of the 8% already imposed on them – was nowhere near enough.

Asked whether he believed junior doctors still had public support for their action, he told PA Media: “I think the public know the only way to have a healthcare system that looks after them is to have enough doctors. And they can completely appreciate when doctors graduate and they’re starting on £15.50 an hour – after the government’s latest pay uplift – and go to a maximum of £30 an hour after 10 years of working, that’s just not enough.”

The offer of a 3% average increase would mean doctors paid £15.50 an hour would only see that increase to £16. It was “not unreasonable” for doctors to want to be paid £21 an hour, Trevedi said.

He added: “While strike action is disruptive, the public are still very much aware that the government needs to get real and meet us at the table and put an offer that will end this dispute.

“That’s the only way this dispute will end: an offer that’s acceptable to our doctors which will work towards building back the value to a doctor’s life, and be able to then retain those doctors who are otherwise fleeing to places like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland. We need to do better.”

Junior doctors plan to strike again, this time for six days – their longest stoppage yet – from 3 January, when the NHS is likely to be experiencing severe winter pressures and staff absence.

Victoria Atkins, the health and social care secretary, said this week’s strike would lead to some patients having to stay in hospital over Christmas who would otherwise have been discharged.

She said: “So this Christmas, we know that these strikes if they continue today, tomorrow and on Friday, it will mean that people will stay in hospital longer than if the strikes had not happened because hospitals will not be able to discharge them.

“So there will be people spending Christmas in hospital rather than at home. That is an enormous cost for individuals and for their families.”