Public sympathy towards the upcoming strikes, set to go ahead between December 17 and 22, is drying up.

Wes Streeting, the UK’s Health Secretary, has accused the British Medical Association of “juvenile delinquency”, and it appears public opinion isn’t too dissimilar, with 58 per cent of the public opposing the announced strikes according to the latest YouGov poll.

This is the fourteenth strike that doctors will have participated in since disputes began in March 2023 to ensure “full pay restoration”: the return of salaries to the levels they were at in 2008–09, before their real-terms value was eroded.

This represents a 26 per cent increase in pay, an offer which Wes Streeting has deemed a “fantasy demand”.

In a profession centred on care and compassion, choosing to walk out is not an easy decision to make.

There is guilt, there is internal conflict, and there is unease.

There is also, however, the question of whether doctors can go on like this: that is, without pay restoration and without an increase in the number of training posts, leading to high competition ratios and training bottlenecks.

The future of doctors is in crisis, a harsh reality that the government refuses to fully acknowledge.

A July 2025 survey amongst resident doctors revealed that 34 per cent did not have a job secured for the following month.

The General Medical Council reported in 2024 that 63 per cent of doctors were regularly working overtime.

Despite this, it is doctors who are being labelled “self-indulgent, irresponsible and dangerous” by the Health Secretary.

All this while the government has consistently failed to put a credible offer on the table to end the job crisis, instead refusing to comment on a pay rise and misleading the public by characterising the repurposing of roles as an increase in the number of jobs in the NHS.

This is nothing short of an insult for those in a profession where every decision made has the potential to change lives.

The stakes are high and the pressure is even higher. It is disappointing and demoralising to look towards an uncertain future knowing that we cannot go on being overstretched and overburdened.

The NHS cannot be carried forward on the goodwill of its staff, as evidenced by the haemorrhage of workers to competitive foreign markets.

Nor can the government continue to make offers which lack substance and serve only as a smoke screen to sway public opinion against doctors.

This only fuels distrust and resentment, leaving doctors, like myself, with no choice but to strike. Again.