junior doctors

Wes Streeting berates doctor live on-air as five-day BMA strike begins

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 Junior doctors and members of the British Medical Association (BMA) on the picket line outside Cheltenham General Hospital during their continuing dispute over pay, January 8, 2024

HEALTH SECRETARY Wes Streeting ranted on live radio today as thousands of resident doctors began their five-day strike in England.

He unleashed a tirade on LBC after north London doctor Niraj told him that “we all care about patient safety, none of us wants to be on strike, I would rather be at work today.”

The British Medical Association (BMA) called the 13th strike by doctors since March 2023, having long called for their pay to be restored to pre-austerity rates.

Despite rises by Labour, it remains about a fifth down on its real-terms value in 2008.

Mr Streeting clashed angrily after Niraj raised his union’s concerns over a lack of training places and other workforce issues.

He accused doctors of “inflicting pain and misery” on patients and holding them to ransom by its “extremely irresponsible” action.

The Health Secretary claimed the “extremely unnecessary” strikes were shocking given patients receive “a substandard service” and that the BMA was speaking for its “activists” rather than their members.

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Continue ReadingWes Streeting berates doctor live on-air as five-day BMA strike begins

Striking doctors threaten more summer walkouts if Labour echoes Tory ‘lies’ on NHS

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Junior doctors on the picket line outside St Thomas’ Hospital, London, during their continuing dispute over pay, June 27, 2024

SIR KEIR STARMER was warned today against repeating Rishi Sunak’s mistakes as 25,000 junior doctors began a five-day pay walkout across England, threatening further strike action this summer.

The British Medical Association (BMA) members hit out at the Labour leader’s “lies” over NHS funding as they staged their 11th walkout since March last year, including at the Friarage Hospital close to the Prime Minister’s constituency in North Yorkshire.

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has said he would not grant the BMA’s demands for real-terms pay restoration in one go as it would mean any “trade union worth their salt” would ask for the same the following year.

But with the dispute now in its 20th month, BMA junior doctors committee co-chairman Rob Laurenson said: “Keir Starmer would do well not to repeat the mistakes of Rishi Sunak, and to empower his health secretary to negotiate in good faith.”

He welcomed Mr Streeting describing pay negotiations as a “journey, not an event,” saying the union was happy to negotiate a multi-year deal.

But he added: “The truth of the matter is a doctor starts with £15 an hour and we are asking for doctors to be paid about £21 an hour — that is affordable.

“The government has spent £3 billion on strikes and pay restoration costs £1.3 billion — again if an incoming government under Keir Starmer wants to continue lying then it looks like strikes will have to continue as well.”

His committee co-chairman Dr Vivek Trivedi warned that as the current strike mandate ends on September 19, “if talks do not move in a timely manner, then of course our members would expect us to call for strike action.”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/striking-doctors-threaten-more-walkouts-over-starmers-nhs-lies

Continue ReadingStriking doctors threaten more summer walkouts if Labour echoes Tory ‘lies’ on NHS

Morning Star: Building unity against the Westminster consensus on the NHS

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JUNIOR doctors walking out for a fifth time this weekend are blamed by Tory ministers for the NHS’s record-breaking waiting lists.

Their pay restoration demands are billed as greedy, though the case they make is straightforward, as the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee co-chair Dr Robert Laurenson points out: “Over the last 15 years, the government has cut our pay by 31.7 per cent so we’re looking to restore that pay back to what it was like in 2008.”

Rishi Sunak declines even to discuss this — maintaining that the current offer is “fair and final,” on the grounds it has been recommended by an “independent” (by which he means government-appointed) pay review body.

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Labour backs the Tory policy for reducing waiting lists, which is to increase NHS use of private-sector providers.

This cannot possibly work, since the private sector is parasitical on the NHS and poaches NHS staff. Commissioning more private-sector work actively worsens the NHS staffing crisis.

Our demand ultimately needs to be for more resources for the NHS. It needs more staff, it needs to pay them more and it needs to treat them better.

The Westminster consensus against raising spending needs to be challenged. It’s therefore disappointing that Scottish Labour simply carped at the Scottish National Party after research it commissioned exposed the huge funding gap between the NHS and European healthcare systems — with Germany and Norway spending a full third more per head on healthcare than we do.

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Continue ReadingMorning Star: Building unity against the Westminster consensus on the NHS

Doctors’ confidence in Tories reaches new low

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BMA survey reveals breakdown of trust as junior doctors brace for biggest walkout in NHS history

People take part in a rally in Trafalgar Square in London, in support of striking NHS junior doctors, as the British Medical Association holds a 96-hour walkout in a dispute over pay. Picture date: Tuesday April 11, 2023.
People take part in a rally in Trafalgar Square in London, in support of striking NHS junior doctors, as the British Medical Association holds a 96-hour walkout in a dispute over pay. Picture date: Tuesday April 11, 2023.

THE loss of trust between doctors and Tory ministers is the “worst it has been for at least three decades,” the British Medical Association (BMA) has warned.

In a damning intervention ahead of the 75th birthday of the NHS on Wednesday, the union’s council chairman Dr Phil Banfield stressed that he has never known such a breakdown of trust in his 30 years as a medic.

It is an “absolute travesty” that doctors feel they have no other choice but to strike following more than a decade of plummeting take-home pay, he added.

The warning came as junior doctors prepare to stage the biggest walkout in the history of the health service between July 13 and 18.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/doctors-confidence-in-tories-reaches-new-low

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Record number of junior doctors vote overwhelmingly for strike action

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Junior doctors wear scrubs and masks as they sit down in a silent protest outside Bristol Royal Infirmary on the second day of all-out strike action in April 2016

JUNIOR doctors in England have voted overwhelmingly to take strike action over pay, their union the British Medical Association (BMA) announced today.

Almost 37,000 members of the union took part in the ballots with 98 per cent saying they were in favour of striking, which the BMA said will be a three-day action.

The vote is the largest turnout for a ballot of doctors by the BMA, and a record number of junior doctors voted for strike action.

BMA junior doctors committee co-chairs Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said: “The government has only itself to blame, standing by in silent indifference as our members are forced to take this difficult decision.”

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Continue ReadingRecord number of junior doctors vote overwhelmingly for strike action