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UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has made a last ditch plea to doctors in England not to follow their trade union down the “damaging road” of industrial action, as they prepare to launch five days of strikes.
About 50,000 resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, will walk out from 7am on Friday until 7am on Wednesday in an escalation of a bitter dispute over pay.
Writing in The Times newspaper on the eve of the strikes, Starmer warned it would “play into the hands” of those who do not want the NHS to “succeed in its current form” and “cause real damage” to patients.
The walkout threatened “to turn back the clock” on progress his government had made in “rebuilding the NHS” over the past year, he added.
The British Medical Association, which represents resident doctors, last summer accepted a pay rise of 22 per cent over two years offered by the Labour government.
However, the country’s main medical union is now demanding a pay rise of 29 per cent for resident doctors to make up for below-inflation salary increases since 2008.
In a letter sent to doctors after negotiations broke down this week, health secretary Wes Streeting said he had been honest with the BMA that the government “cannot afford to go further on pay this year”.
Streeting said he did not believe the union had “engaged with me in good faith” and that he had been prepared to negotiate on areas related to conditions at work and career progression. “I deeply regret the position we now find ourselves in”, he told doctors on Thursday.
In a statement on Friday, Streeting said: “There is no getting around the fact that these strikes will hit the progress we are making in turning the NHS around. “BMA leadership chose to walk away from talks and lay the damage at the NHS’s door,” he added.
Further strikes could threaten the government’s promise to cut NHS waiting times for patients awaiting elective procedures.
Public sympathy for industrial action is waning, with the latest YouGov polling showing that 31 per cent of people surveyed “strongly oppose” resident doctors going on strike over pay.
Hospital leaders have also warned the walkout would put public safety at risk. A previous round of strike action by doctors under the former Conservative government led to about 1.2mn operations and appointments being cancelled in England.
However, during the latest industrial action, hospital bosses have been asked by NHS England to “maintain elective care to the fullest extent possible”.
The move has prompted a bitter row between health leaders and the BMA over who is most responsible for putting patient safety at risk.
Dr Tom Dolphin, chair of the BMA, said: “We are very sorry that strikes have become necessary and of course if people have emergencies or need urgent care they should still present to the hospital or their GP as usual, as they always would.
“Striking is something that doctors don’t want to have to do.”