Health secretary Wes Streeting congratulated the NHS staff for keeping "the show on the road" during the latest strike action by resident doctors.
He said in a statement, "One of the things I am proud of is that during previous rounds of resident doctors' strikes we’ve maintained 95 percent of planned care, improvements in A&E and emergency response times. However, I wish we were not putting so much on the shoulders of other NHS staff or spending £300 million on this strike."
Streeting urged the resident doctors to meet him, "So we can resolve this dispute and put an end to these needless cycles of disruption."
"My door is open - as it always has been."
He pointed out that resident doctors had a 28.9 percent pay rise in the first weeks of the Labour government.
"There’s a deal on the table for an average 4.9 percent pay rise for this year, which increases to 7.1 percent for some of the lowest-paid doctors.
"We have also prioritised UK graduates for training places and that’s reduced competition for those places from 4 to 1 to less than 2 to 1," he said.
The six-day strike, which concluded on Monday (13), was the 15th round of industrial action by resident doctors since 2023.
The BMA has accused the Government of going back on an offer made last month to resolve the long-running dispute and is demanding that pay be restored to 2008 levels under retail price index (RPI) measures of inflation.
Ban strikes
Last week, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called for a ban on doctors' strikes.
In her column in the Daily Mail, she said the striking doctors were “betraying the patients that its members swore to serve”.
“If the BMA refuses to act reasonably, the Government must step in to ensure the safety of patients,” she wrote.
“That’s why I will ban resident doctors and consultants from going on strike, as we already do for the police and armed forces.
“We will reintroduce minimum service levels across the NHS, so that all patients know the NHS will always be there when they need it.”
