Assistant doctors should end “cynical” strikes

Junior doctors in England have been urged to call off their “cynical” strikes at the end of the month as experts warned that the strike would “put patients’ health at risk”.

Health Minister Victoria Atkins said the government could not make an offer to doctors in the pre-election period and warned that the five-day strike would cause “real harm” to patients.

The patients’ association had previously stated that the “sole aim” of the strike by members of the British Medical Association (BMA) would be to “disrupt patient care”.

“The timing of the action – there is currently an election in the UK and no government with which the BMA can negotiate – means there is no opportunity for talks to prevent these strikes,” the organisation said in a statement.

“The only thing the planned five-day strike at the end of June will achieve is a disruption to patient care as appointments and treatments will have to be postponed. Patients’ health will be at risk.”

Previously, junior doctors had offered Prime Minister Rishi Sunak a “last chance” to avert a new wave of strikes in their long-running dispute over doctors’ salaries.

The union offered to call off the five-day strikes planned starting June 27 if it receives a “written commitment to a detailed plan to restore our wages in the form of a comprehensive agreement that will be implemented when you are able to form the next government.”

In response, Ms Atkins said the “cynical” strikes “will harm patients”.

In a letter published on X, she wrote: “You are now threatening a strike in the middle of the election campaign. This is a cynical move that will unfortunately cause real harm to patients awaiting treatment.”

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She said it would be “inappropriate” for the government to make such an offer in the run-up to the election, as Cabinet Office guidelines suggest, adding: “You know this and yet you have refused to call off these strikes.”

Ms Atkins said if the Conservatives win the election they will “go straight back to the negotiating room” and she concluded: “These strikes are damaging to patients. They must stop them.”

The BMA wrote on X: “The upcoming strikes are happening because the Government and Victoria Atkins have never made a credible offer to our members.”

The co-chairs of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, said in a statement: “It is not true that there is no way to prevent these strikes.

“We made it very clear in our letter to the Prime Minister on Wednesday that all he needs to do is commit in writing to a path to wage restoration, as with all his other commitments, and then we would end the strikes. That is well within his power.”