{"id":311920,"date":"2025-12-12T11:08:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T11:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/311920\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T11:08:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T11:08:13","slug":"starmer-says-resident-doctors-would-be-irresponsible-to-strike-in-face-of-flu-crisis-nhs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/311920\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer says resident doctors would be irresponsible to strike in face of flu crisis | NHS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keir Starmer has said resident doctors would be irresponsible to push ahead with strikes next week after NHS<\/a> England said a surge of \u201csuper flu\u201d cases had left the service facing its worst-case scenario this winter.<\/p>\n

Ministers presented the British Medical Association with a fresh offer on training places<\/a> on Wednesday night in a last-ditch attempt to avert strikes.<\/p>\n

The BMA is consulting its members on the proposals, raising hopes of a breakthrough, despite its leaders saying they do nothing to address their concerns on pay.<\/p>\n

The prime minister urged resident doctors \u2013 formerly known as junior doctors \u2013 to \u201cdo the responsible thing, accept the offer that\u2019s on the table, and we can all move forward\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are being irresponsible in my view. We have already put in place quite a significant pay rise,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are other issues that they\u2019re concerned about, which we\u2019ve been listening to, and we put an offer on the table to deal with those issues, but that offer can only go forward if they don\u2019t take strike action, particularly in the run-up to Christmas, particularly when we\u2019ve got a problem with flu.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for many resident doctors, I think in their heart of hearts, they probably don\u2019t want to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, pledged <\/a>to double the number of extra places that early career doctors in England can apply for in order to train in their chosen area of specialism.<\/p>\n

BMA leaders said although the offer was a \u201cmixed bag\u201d they would survey their membership on whether to call off planned five-day strike action<\/a> due to start next Wednesday.<\/p>\n

NHS England warned it was facing a \u201cworst-case scenario\u201d in December with a surge of \u201csuper flu\u201d as it released its latest hospital figures on Thursday morning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Graph showing flu rates over the last four years<\/a><\/p>\n

The service said an average of 2,660 patients a day were in hospital with flu last week, the highest ever for this time of year, and up 55% on the previous week.<\/p>\n

The president of the Society for Acute Medicine, Vicky Price, said a \u201cflu-nami\u201d was hitting the NHS<\/a> but that it was \u201ca sadly familiar picture of a system under relentless strain\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis week we have seen clinicians reviewing patients in waiting rooms due to lack of space, and cupboards used as temporary clinical areas \u2013 a new low for patient care standards,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The chief executive of the hospitals group NHS Providers, Daniel Elkeles, said the response from the BMA \u201cdoes give us some hope\u201d and that there was \u201ca realistic potential that next week\u2019s strikes could be called off\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government have really listened \u2026 and I think what they\u2019ve put on the table is a huge move,\u201d he told BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme. \u201cThis has been a dispute that has gone on for a very long time. Someone had to do something pretty significant to find a resolution and I really hope this is it.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, union leaders said the offer did not include more pay for this year or address resident doctors\u2019 demand for a 26% salary rise over the next few years, on top of the 28.9% increase they have had since 2023.<\/p>\n

Dr Jack Fletcher, the chair of the BMA, said the proposals were a \u201cmixed bag\u201d and lacking in detail but that the union was willing to explore them \u201cas a potential solution\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re putting this offer neutrally and factually to members,\u201d he told the Today programme. \u201cThere are some parts of this offer that contain things like important legislation, some way of fixing this jobs crisis, but let\u2019s be clear, there are no more doctors at the end of this \u2026 We are still seeing a net zero in terms of an increase or decrease of doctors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing in this offer which goes in any way towards the significant pay erosion that we\u2019ve had over the last 15-plus years. We\u2019ve got a health secretary who\u2019s pushing real-terms pay cuts on doctors in April next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fletcher said the union was nonetheless putting the offer to its members because it \u201creaches a threshold\u201d for doing so and \u201cthere is important legislation in there\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said the union would carry out an externally verified survey of doctors and that if a simple majority said the offer should be explored further and strikes called off, next week\u2019s action would be cancelled. At that point, the offer would be put formally to BMA members.<\/p>\n

Dr Shivam Sharma, a deputy co-chair of the BMA, said the union was in \u201ca dispute on both pay and jobs\u201d and that \u201cthis offer does absolutely nothing on pay\u201d. \u201cI do find it difficult to see members accepting this offer,\u201d he told Times Radio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer has said resident doctors would be irresponsible to push ahead with strikes next week after NHS…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-311920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}