Doctor strikes: BMA says 5-day walkout will go ahead even if heatwave alerts issued
A “highly dangerous” five-day walkout by junior doctors will go ahead even if health alerts are issued as a result of the hot weather, the British Medical Association has said.
Resident doctors in England, as junior doctors are now known, are set to strike from 7am on 25 July as part of a pay dispute with the government.
The industrial action will happen even if temperatures soar again next week, leading to warnings of fatalities, the doctors’ union has told the Independent.
Last week an amber heat health alert was issued for large parts of England, with authorities warning high temperatures at the weekend were likely to lead to deaths.
As hot and dry weather scorched the country, the UK Health Security Agency’s upgraded the less severe yellow alerts that had been in place in five regions, warning of a “significant impact” in the affected areas including a “rise in deaths.”
While there are currently no alerts in place for next week, the Met Office long-range forecast warns that temperatures are “expected to be above normal for the majority of the UK throughout this period”, and that “some hot conditions are likely to develop”.
Asked if the planned strikes would still go ahead even if there were health warnings in place because of the weather, a BMA spokesman said: “During all previous strikes we had an agreed system with NHS England which allows for resident doctors to voluntarily return to work in the event of safety concerns about services, arising from circumstances that were not related to industrial action. We expect this to be the same again.
“This relates to requests by individual Trusts and services, so taken on a case-by-case basis”.
Professor Robert Winston, a Labour peer who became a household name through his documentaries on child development, has warned that the “highly dangerous” industrial action by the BMA risks harming the public’s trust in the profession.
But the new leader of the BMA has said that the doctors’ 29 per cent pay demand is “non-negotiable” and warned strikes could go on for years.
Ahead of discussions planned for later this week, the health secretary Wes Streeting said he was pleased that the BMA has agreed to “sit down and talk to try and avert these strikes”.
But he stressed that the government had been “really clear” that it will not “reopen this year’s pay award”, he told Sky News. “I’m very clear we can’t go further on pay – we’ve already given them a 28.9 per cent pay increase; they had the largest pay award the entire public sector this year. So offering more would be unaffordable but also unfair to other NHS staff and other public sector workers.”
But he added that there was “plenty of stuff we can do” to “improve the lives of resident doctors, improve the service for patients and give everyone a win win out of this situation”.
Dr Tom Dolphin, from the BMA, has said the union will not negotiate on or accept a figure lower than its ask of 29 per cent, saying that is the extent of the real-terms loss of earnings doctors have seen since 2008 – a salary they want restored in full.
He has also claimed the demand is reasonable and easily affordable for the NHS.
But a poll at the weekend suggested public support for such a strike has collapsed.
While last summer’s doctors’ strikes drew the backing of 52 per cent of those asked, the latest industrial action planned is only supported by one in four, 26 per cent, members of the public, the survey by Ipsos found.
The Department of Health has been approached for comment.
