Junior doctor strikes: glimmer of hope in an intractable dispute

March 13, 2023 seems a long, long time ago. That was the day junior doctors first went on strike. Since then they have walked out another 10 times, most recently for five days during the general election.

There have been few talks, no movement in the negotiations, and a lot of cancelled appointments and operations – nearly 1.5 million.

Now, with a new government and a promise from the Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, there is a glimmer of hope that something may finally move on what had begun to seem an intractable dispute.

During the election campaign, Mr Streeting vowed to begin negotiations as a matter of urgency while making it clear that he would not agree to a 35 per cent pay rise, and that this would be a “journey, not an event”.

He did also say that he was “beyond furious” when the juniors went on their most recent strike, and asked them to “give change a chance on July 4”. And there were certainly raised eyebrows within the NHS and even within parts of the BMA of the political wisdom of the junior docs calling a strike at that particular moment when there was nobody in government to negotiate with.

But true to his word,  on his first day in office, Mr Streeting phoned the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee and said that he could announce that talks to end their industrial action will begin next week.

BMA junior doctors committee co-chairs Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said in a statement: “We were pleased to speak to the new Health Secretary Wes Streeting today, as he made good on his commitment made during the election campaign for JDC (the junior doctors’ committee) to be his first call and get the ball rolling on negotiating a solution to the junior doctors’ dispute.

“As we have always been clear, only a credible offer, acceptable to our members, will end this dispute and we hope this will be made by the new government as soon as possible.”

It is worth noting that, of course, ‘talks’ are not ‘negotiations’, but let’s not get too bogged down with this particular detail.  It is a start and an important start.

It is also worth noting that the BMA are playing down that 35 per cent claims and, in fairness, it was always a tricky calculation.  They say they had suffered a real terms pay cut of 26% between 2008 and 2022 – and that would require  35 per cent to reverse.

And they want to concentrate on the 26 per cent figure while (as they have repeatedly said) being willing to discuss a multi-year pay deal.  They have also said there was room for including issues like the cost of exams or hospital parking during their shifts.

Any deal, of course, will see a collective sigh of relief right across England’s NHS, and will be an important step towards Labour’s plan to reduce the waiting lists.