Health secretary Wes Streeting has said that Labour would never give in to the British Medical Association (BMA) 's demand for a 29 percent pay rise, and the union “will lose a war with this government”.
However, he also urged the BMA to agree a deal based on tackling other frustrations those doctors have, separate from their salaries, in which both sides would “win the peace”.
Fresh talks are planned next week, but the health secretary said that to have any chance of success, the BMA should agree it will not call any more strikes.
He wrote in The Guardian, “It should be clear to the BMA by now that they will lose a war with this government. It’s not too late for us both to win the peace.”
“All I ask of the BMA is two things. The first is to drop this unnecessary and unreasonable rush to strike action. It mars doctors, it harms patients, and it is fundamentally self-defeating because it leaves the NHS with less money to address the issues that doctors care about,” Streeting said.
His remarks come after the end of a five-day stoppage by thousands of resident doctors between last Friday and Wednesday morning.
The BMA has rejected a potential deal based on non-pay issues and wants a 'pay restoration'.
The BMA claims the real-terms value of their salaries since 2008 has been eroded, despite having received an uplift of 22 per cent over the last two years.
BMA’s resident doctors committee co-chairs Dr Ross Nieuwoudt and Dr Melissa Ryan have insisted that Streeting must find some way of upping their 5.4 per cent pay award for 2025-26.
Rory Deighton, the acute and community care director at the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS hospital trusts, said: “After a week of disruption to services, health leaders will be pleased that the BMA wants to resume talks. But it has to recognise the red lines set by the government, as the NHS must live within its means."
