JUNIOR doctors will go on strike again just days before the General Election.
They will down tools for five days from June 27 to July 2, the British Medical Association (BMA) confirmed today.
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The union said it had “no choice” after ministers “refused to meet pay demands”.
Committee co-chairs Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said: “We made clear to the government that we would strike unless discussions ended in a credible pay offer.
“For more than 18 months we have been asking Rishi Sunak to put forward proposals to restore the pay junior doctors have lost over the past 15 years – equal to more than a quarter in real terms.
“When we entered mediation with the government this month we did so under the impression that we had a functioning government that would soon be making an offer.
“Clearly no offer is now forthcoming.
“Junior doctors are fed up and out of patience.”
They described this round of action, which falls in the week before the General Election on July 4, as “the biggest and loudest yet”.
Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said the choice of dates was a “highly cynical tactic”.
She wrote on X: “Announcing this during an election and on Labour’s health day shows this was only ever political and not about patients or staff.”
Others have praised the timing as “the issue needs resolving now”.
The BMA said that if the PM makes a public commitment its members deem “acceptable”, then no walkout will go ahead.
Junior doctors, whose salaries start at £32,000, have been in dispute with the government over pay and working conditions for more than a year.
They say in 2008, medics were paid £20 an hour in today’s money, and this has dropped to £15 in 2023/24.
“Pay is still eroding, morale is still plummeting and retention rates are still dropping,” Dr Trivedi said.
He and colleagues are demanding a 35 per cent rise over several years.
They received one averaging nearly nine per cent in the last financial year but allegedly rejected an offer of a further three per cent.
After the election was called last week, the union gave ministers a “final opportunity” to meet their requests.
Talks reopened with a view to finally ending the long-running wage war, but “no credible offer has been made”.
Sir Keir Starmer described this as “unforgivable”.
How much do junior doctors earn?
The pay received by junior doctors is dependent on experience.
In 2023/24, the basic annual pay for a first-year junior doctor in England is £32,397.
This was after the government also announced a pay rise for junior doctors of 6% plus £1,250 each.
This began to be paid in autumn 2023, backdated to April.
This works out at a basic pay of £15.53 per hour for most junior doctors.
However, the average junior doctor is not in their first year and therefore earns much more than basic pay.
According to the NHS Digital workforce and earnings data, the average full-time junior doctor in September 2023 earned a basic pay of £44,5000.
This figure also does not include any extra earnings, which comes from working extra hours.
A doctor beginning their specialist training will earn between £40,257 to £53,398 a year.
The average salary is about £50,000 per year.
If you are a specialist grade doctor you’ll earn a basic salary of £83,945 to £92,275.
Speaking to broadcasters during a campaign visit to the University of Worcester, the Labour leader, who will go head-to-head with Mr Sunak in a televised debate next week, said: “Firstly, I’m shocked that we’re in this position because this has been going on a very long time.
“I think the government should have resolved it and negotiated a settlement. And what they’ve effectively done is kicked it to the other side of the General Election. That’s unforgivable.
“Obviously, I don’t want the strike to go ahead. I don’t think health staff want to go on strike and it really impacts on patients.
“But if we are privileged enough to come in to serve, then it will fall to us to settle this and to come to an agreement so the NHS gets back to working in the way that it desperately needs to for so many people on the waiting lists.”
Labour won’t give junior doctors a full pay rise on day one of a new government, the shadow health secretary has said.
Wes Streeting told Good Morning Britain that his party “wouldn’t be able to afford” the 35 per cent claim, but he would negotiate “fairly”.
Next month’s walkout will be the 11th by junior doctors since March 2023.
It will mean they have been on strike for a total of 44 days over 16 months.
Almost 1.5million NHS appointments have been delayed or cancelled since strikes first began last year.
The walkouts are expected to cost the health service an estimated £3billion.
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