Resident doctors have rejected a fresh offer from the health secretary, Wes Streeting, to end a dispute over jobs and pay in England.
BMA resident doctors are due to return to the picket lines next week for five days from 7 am on Friday 14 November, after talks with the government over pay and unemployment stalled.1 This latest wave of strikes follows five days of similar action over pay by resident doctors in July.2
On 5 November Streeting wrote directly to resident doctors and the BMA with details of a fresh offer (box). This included doubling the number of additional specialty training posts being created and covering the costs of mandatory exams and royal college membership fees.
But Streeting added that he could not move on pay given the “enormous financial pressures” facing the country. The BMA’s Resident Doctors Committee said that Streeting’s offer simply “does not go far enough.”
The dispute has become increasingly ill tempered in recent weeks, with the BMA accusing Streeting of “holding doctors’ jobs hostage” after he suggested that less money would be available to expand specialty training places if strikes went ahead.3 In his latest offer to the BMA he echoed these sentiments, saying that if further strikes went ahead he would “not be able to afford to offer the non-pay package again” and “may also have to reconsider whether the NHS can afford the other elements we have committed to.”
In another arm to the dispute the Health Service Journal has reported that the government’s rapid national investigation into maternity and neonatal services will no longer publish interim findings this year, with officials claiming that this work has been delayed by next week’s resident doctors’ strike.4
Streeting’s offer
In Streeting’s new offer he acknowledged concerns about the unemployment crisis facing resident …
