Doctors call for ‘less name-calling and more deal-making’ from Health Secretary Wes Streeting
Resident doctors on the picket line outside Leeds General Infirmary, on the first day of a five-day walkout over pay and jobs, which could see up to half of the medical workforce in England could stop work, December 17, 2025RESIDENT doctors are keen to resume talks with the government to avoid further strikes but “must see less name-calling and more deal-making” from Health Secretary Wes Streeting, said the British Medical Association (BMA) today.
Medics will enter 2026 a “renewed can-do spirit,” added the union as they returned to work after a five-day walkout in England as part of their long-running dispute over jobs and pay.
The BMA’s resident doctors committee chair Dr Jack Fletcher said: “What we need is a proper fix to this jobs crisis and a credible path towards restoring the lost value of the profession.
“That must mean the creation of genuinely new jobs, and it could involve a responsible multi-year approach to restoring doctors’ pay.
“Those are solutions that mean we can build out our future workforce to end the current crisis, solutions which are very much within government’s power.”
The strike followed 83 per cent of resident doctors voting to reject a government offer for more specialist training places but no extra pay. Turnout was 65 per cent.
Dr Fletcher said that medics are “frustrated by the year that has just passed,” which saw Mr Streeting compare them with juvenile delinquents and “moaning minnies.”
“There have been plenty of opportunities for strike action to have been avoided but all too often the government has moved too little and too late,” he added.
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Junior doctors and members of the British Medical Association (BMA) outside St Thomas’ Hospital, London, January 3, 2024
