{"id":617071,"date":"2026-06-02T13:53:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/617071\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T13:53:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:53:16","slug":"strike-action-does-work-resident-doctors-leader-says-ahead-of-june-walkout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/617071\/","title":{"rendered":"Strike action does work, resident doctors\u2019 leader says ahead of June walkout"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Strike action has been effective at bringing the Government<\/a> to the negotiating table in the past, the British Medical Association<\/a> (BMA) has said ahead of a four-day strike next month.<\/p>\n

Dr Jack Fletcher, chairman of the BMA\u2019s resident doctors\u2019 committee, said doctors were being lost to other countries because they are not valued, as he urged the Government to settle the dispute.<\/p>\n

His comments come as the BMA confirmed that resident doctors will strike from 7am on Monday June 15 to 6.59am on Friday June 19.<\/p>\n

The announcement followed the union\u2019s first talks with new Health Secretary<\/a> James Murray on Wednesday, where they failed to reach a deal on pay and job protections.<\/p>\n

When asked if previous strikes were effective, Dr Fletcher told the Press Association: \u201cIn response to the industrial action, I don\u2019t agree that it hasn\u2019t worked previously.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn November, we wrote to the Health Secretary to come to the table, he didn\u2019t respond, and therefore we announced industrial action which brought him to the table. That led to a number of things, including an offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe put that off to our members in December, that was rejected and then we then took industrial action to get a better offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been in discussions in January, February, March, and those discussions were very constructive, however, they fundamentally didn\u2019t address the problems that we have.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are losing doctors to other countries because they are not valued.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to be taking further industrial action.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be getting an offer that we can put to our members to bring this dispute to a close, but fundamentally, that isn\u2019t going to happen if the Health Secretary and this team are not willing to move on the previous offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, Sir Jim Mackey, chief executive of NHS England<\/a>, warned hospital leaders to plan for a \u201clong period of strikes\u201d and suggested the NHS would seek to become less reliant on doctors in training if disruption continued.<\/p>\n

Dr Fletcher warned moving further away from doctor-led care would worsen productivity in the NHS.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cFor the last decade or so we have seen dropping productivity in our NHS, despite employing more and more people, and a move away from doctor-led care.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re employing more people whilst moving away from doctor-led care, and therefore becoming less productive, why on earth would you want to continue that in the future?<\/p>\n

\u201cFundamentally, we think the NHS is less productive, and NHS England agrees with that.<\/p>\n

\"HealthHealth Secretary James Murray urged the BMA to work with the Government (Ben Bauer\/PA Wire) (PA Wire)<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually think we need more doctors. Other OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries have higher numbers of doctors in their healthcare systems, and they see better waiting list times, reduced A&E waits and improved access to GPs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is why I said we should go in that direction, rather than continuing down this journey that was started a decade ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Murray, who was appointed after the resignation of Wes Streeting earlier this month, said he wanted a \u201cproductive relationship\u201d with the BMA, but the union\u2019s demands for further pay increases were \u201cunrealistic, unaffordable, and unsustainable\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking after the strike action was announced, he said: \u201cI\u2019m disappointed that the BMA have refused to consider further discussions about how to strengthen the deal on the table and have instead rushed once again to unnecessary and unreasonable strike action.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was clear with the BMA that after a 33.4% pay rise for resident doctors over the last four years \u2013 the highest anywhere across the public sector \u2013 the BMA\u2019s demands for further substantial pay increases this year are unrealistic, unaffordable, and unsustainable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are simply not grounds for yet more strike action, which patients do not support, puts further pressure on other staff, and costs the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-617071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617071","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=617071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}