{"id":509609,"date":"2026-04-02T21:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T21:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/509609\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T21:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T21:35:07","slug":"streeting-hits-out-at-bma-delusion-as-talks-to-avert-resident-doctors-strike-fail-doctors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/509609\/","title":{"rendered":"Streeting hits out at BMA \u2018delusion\u2019 as talks to avert resident doctors\u2019 strike fail | Doctors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NHS in England is bracing for the longest strike yet by resident doctors after last-ditch talks failed, prompting Wes Streeting<\/a> to accuse the medics of suffering from \u201cdelusion\u201d.<\/p>\n

Many thousands of resident \u2013 formerly junior \u2013 doctors will stage a six-day stoppage over pay and jobs starting at 7am on Tuesday, just after the Easter weekend. A deadline for agreement ended on Thursday.<\/p>\n

It will be the 16th walkout the doctors have staged since their first strike in March 2023, and there are growing fears that the dispute could drag on for another year.<\/p>\n

Streeting confirmed in a letter to the British Medical Association that he had withdrawn his offer to create 1,000 extra places in specialist medical training this year, as that was conditional on the BMA accepting<\/a> the government\u2019s most recent offer, which it rejected last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Talks on Tuesday and Wednesday this week failed to reach a deal that would have led to the BMA suspending or cancelling the strike. The union and ministers remain far apart on a number of key issues, including pay.<\/p>\n

Jim Mackey, the chief executive of NHS England<\/a>, said he expected the health service to face \u201ca long slog\u201d of continuing strikes by resident doctors. Services would increasingly care for patients in ways that reduced the need for resident doctors because bosses could not rely on them being at work, he told the Health Service Journal.<\/p>\n

Streeting cast doubt on ever reaching a negotiated settlement with the BMA\u2019s resident doctors committee. Some senior doctors believe the dispute is insoluble given the committee\u2019s demand for a 26% pay rise and the state of the public finances making that an increase ministers cannot approve.<\/p>\n

In a letter, Streeting told the committee\u2019s chair, Dr Jack Fletcher, that after it rebuffed the offer \u201cI had expected the \u2026 committee to at least come back with a counterproposal to end these strikes, given your stated commitment to reaching a negotiated settlement. You could not agree one.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf members of your committee cannot reach an agreed position among themselves, it is hard to see how the government will be able to reach an agreement with your committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

He ridiculed the union for wanting the 1,000 extra training places to come on-stream as planned this year despite its failure to agree a settlement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe BMA seems to be labouring under the delusion that you can reject the deal but claim the benefits of the offer. But we have been clear with you and your officers the jeopardy involved on jobs and pay,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Streeting had pledged the 1,000-place increase in specialist medical training to help meet the BMA\u2019s demand for an expansion of such roles to rid the NHS<\/a> of \u201cbottlenecks\u201d that are preventing fully qualified doctors from moving on in their careers.<\/p>\n

The estimated \u00a3250m cost of each strike and imminent deadline for doctors to apply to start their specialist training this August meant \u201cit is simply not operationally or financially possible\u201d to deliver those 1,000 additional slots, Streeting told Fletcher.<\/p>\n

He was responding to a four-page letter Fletcher sent him on Wednesday in which the chair blamed Streeting and Keir Starmer<\/a> for reducing the chances of a deal.<\/p>\n

Mike Prentice, NHS England\u2019s national director for emergency planning and incident response, told the service\u2019s 205 trusts this week that the strike\u2019s timing meant it would be \u201cchallenging\u201d to cope with, given many staff would be away on Easter holidays.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will represent a significant strain on staffing resources to provide safe cover,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHS in England is bracing for the longest strike yet by resident doctors after last-ditch talks failed,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-509609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509609","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=509609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}