Sky News was interrupted with a breaking news alert as the British Medical Association announced resident doctors in England will strike from June 15 to June 19 in an ongoing NHS pay dispute
Ali Fortescue broke the news(Image: Sky News)
Anyone requiring a resident doctor during mid-June will probably find themselves in difficulty as the British Medical Association has just revealed another wave of strikes. Breaking the news on Sky News, Ali Fortescue announced: “I’m just going to bring you a little bit of breaking news that’s come to us from the British Medical Association.
They said that resident doctors will strike from June 15th to June 19th and that is as part of their long-running dispute with the government over pay.” Shortly afterwards, while the forthcoming rise in energy costs was under discussion, the presenter had to cut short the segment.
“I’m afraid we’re just going to dip out of that and go straight to the British Medical Association after announcing that fresh round of strikes,” she explained.
Dr Jack Fletcher, chairman of the British Medical Association, stated: “We are asking for further discussions and further negotiations to try and avert further industrial action in June.”
When questioned by a journalist about how the planned walkouts could be defended, Fletcher replied: “As it stands, we still have doctors who are not employed in August.
“We have doctors who are desperately chasing too few jobs in our NHS at a time when corridor care in May is still happening in multiple accident and emergency departments across the country. We’ve asked for details as part of a jobs package to prevent those resident doctors from potentially going jobless in a few months time.” He added: “Those details have not been forthcoming. That’s in addition to the fact that we’re likely going to see thousands of doctors leave our NHS to go to different industries and countries across the world because they are undervalued after well over a decade of pay erosion.”, reports the Express.
Another journalist suggested that the strikes aren’t having the desired effect the British Medical Association had anticipated, asserting that public backing has dwindled following 16 separate instances of industrial action since March 2023.
When the journalist proposed this would have been an opportune moment for a reset, Fletcher stated they have been in regular communication with Health Secretary James Murray but they continue to be presented with the same proposal from March, which instigated strikes in April.
He commented: “We wrote to the health secretary hours after he was appointed a couple of weeks ago. We asked to meet him, we continued discussions with the negotiating team and the government.
Despite that, two weeks later, we’re still being met with the same offer that was presented with us back in March which triggered industrial action in April.”
Fletcher further noted that the British Medical Association has “outlined specific areas open to negotiation” in an attempt to prevent strike action in June, but has yet to receive an offer it deems acceptable.
He continued: “We specifically requested to get round a table today, get rid of some of those vagueries around jobs for doctors who are facing unemployment in a few months’ time, to try and get towards a negotiating settlement that could not only avert industrial action in June, but potentially bring an end to industrial action for the next few months, if not the next few years, by resident doctors in the NHS.”
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