For the first time in NHS history, junior doctors and consultants in England will strike together for four days this September. The joint strikes, announced by the BMA, will be in addition to other separate days of industrial action for both junior doctors and consultants. Health secretary Steve Barclay has slammed the BMA’s announcement as ‘callous and calculated’ while BMA representatives have criticised the government for ‘refusing to negotiate’.
The decision by the doctors’ union comes after junior doctors voted today to continue industrial action for another six months. Since March, junior doctors have had 19 days of strikes over pay disputes. To end the strikes, the government has offered doctors a 6 per cent pay rise along with a one-off payment of £1,250. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called this rise his ‘final’ offer.
Medics though are looking for full pay restoration to 2008 levels, which would mean a pay uplift of 35 per cent, including inflation.
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