Senior Doctors in England Set for Two-Day Strike in November
Consultants represented by the BMA will walk out on 25 November, providing only emergency cover, unless the health secretary agrees to formal talks on pay and working conditions.
By Ahmed Montgomery ·
Senior doctors in England are preparing a two-day strike next month, the British Medical Association (BMA) has announced. The walkout by NHS consultants is due to begin at 6.59am on 25 November, and only emergency cover will be provided while it lasts.
The union said more than three-quarters of the consultants who took part in its ballot backed industrial action. It added that the strike could still be avoided if Yvette Cooper, the health secretary, commits to formal negotiations on pay and working conditions. Doctors in this group received a 3.5% pay rise this year.
Consultants in England last took strike action in 2023. They have remained in dispute with the government since last year, and the BMA says the disagreement has now run for more than 18 months.
Dr Helen Neary and Dr Shanu Datta, co-chairs of the BMA's consultants committee, said consultants do far more than deliver frontline, life-saving care. In their words, these doctors are central to running and designing services, training and supervising the future workforce, and making sure patients receive the best possible treatment.
They argued that easing the pressures on the health service will be impossible without valuing and keeping these doctors. They accused the government of ignoring concerns about consultants' wellbeing and workload and of pushing them further away from the NHS. They also said that as the "much-lauded progress on waiting lists in England stalls", ministers are telling consultants they deserve another pay cut.
The co-chairs said the BMA had engaged in good faith since the dispute began, proposing practical solutions, but that ministers had repeatedly "kicked the can down the road". "Unfortunately, that road has now run out and we have been forced to announce strikes," they said. They added that striking does not come naturally to consultants, but that the profession has made clear it has had enough.
On pay, the BMA says consultants' earnings are still a quarter lower in real terms than they were 17 years ago, having fallen more steeply than the rest of the economy. The union also said consultants are not being given the time to dedicate themselves fully to the NHS and patients. In its view, quality and improvement are being traded for "the treadmill of target-chasing", driving colleagues to burnout through excessive workloads.
The BMA said the government has four weeks to prevent any action. Neary and Datta said they look forward to hearing from the health secretary about areas where both sides can work together to stop the strikes, end the dispute and restore the role of the consultant in the NHS, so that patients can benefit from the best clinical leaders for years to come.
Source: The Guardian
