Grubby blackmail wins the day if junior doctors choose to go on strike

Rarely would I agree with Health Secretary on anything, but he is right when he says that further strikes by doctors will choke the recovery of the . He is also fully entitled to feel exasperated with the behaviour of the British Medical Association (BMA), the doctors' union, and its latest decision to ballot their members over more strikes. The BMA has the Government in a vulnerable position and is hellbent on tightening the screws.

Last year, Labour awarded junior doctors, whom we must now call resident doctors, a decent 22.3% pay increase. They did this to end the industrial action which saw 11 strikes take place since 2022, which resulted in an estimated 1.5million appointments being cancelled with patients waiting even longer for their much-needed treatment.

Last month, the Government accepted salary recommendations from pay review bodies that would have resulted in an average 5.4% increase for resident doctors, but the BMA are far from happy with this despite it being the most generous pay award in the NHS.

To put this proposed increase into context, consultants received 4%, while nurses and other health care staff on Agenda for Change contracts were given 3.6%.

The average starting salary for a full-time resident doctor will now be around £38,800, up from around £29,400 in 2022-23. Adding to last year's pay deal, Wes Streeting points out that resident doctors have had an increase of 28.9% over three years which is far from unjust.

The BMA argue that doctors have seen their pay decline by 23% in real terms since 2008 and they want much more cash again this year to level matters up - they are asking for a chunky 30% uplift.

Consequently, BMA members are now being balloted on more industrial action with ballot papers going through letter boxes as we speak.

If resident doctors in vote in favour of more strikes, we could see industrial action running from next month until January 2026, a move that would give Wes Streeting a serious headache and cause further distress to millions of patients waiting for treatment.

The language may seem emotive but if you know anyone currently stuck on an NHS waiting list - currently sitting at well over seven million patients - you will understand how even longer delays for their treatment makes them feel. They tell me it makes them feel bleak, depressed and without hope.

Public support and sympathy with the plight of resident doctors and their pay seems to be on the wane. Last summer, a YouGov poll of British adults saw 52% say they supported striking doctors. The latest poll now shows only 39% support such strikes, whilst 48% of Britons are against them.

The BMA may be on the wrong side of public opinion now, but they hold all the trump cards as they know that this Labour government has pledged electorally to reduce waiting lists and that six months' worth of strikes will damage that aim, if not make it impossible to achieve in the next few years.

Wes Streeting must also be feeling incredibly let down by union chiefs who I suspect he thought were now fully onside after last year's whopping pay increase.

Which leads us onto the motives and mindset of the BMA. In many ways it is ironic that Labour, the political party funded by unions and wholly supportive of them, should be held to ransom this way.

Whenever I hear a BMA spokesperson in the media responding to criticism of their pay demands, they rarely seem to acknowledge what the Government has done for them previously or how their current actions will impact on patients and taxpayers - those of us who fund their salaries.

It is this attitude and apparent lack of compassion that is clearly resulting in the public backing away from supporting future industrial action.

The BMA is right to do the best it can for its members in terms of pay and conditions, after all, that's why resident doctors pay their subscriptions to them, but it must be reasonable in its demands. Many of us are thankful to doctors who have saved our lives - they are some of the most remarkable people on the planet.

Hopefully, they will see that their union bosses have got this one wrong and will vote against any further strikes. Improving the pay for doctors should be a priority but it needs to be achieved in a rational way and not by tactics akin to some form of grubby blackmail.