Doctors to 'strike to next general election and beyond' if no better pay deal
Doctors have warned they will “strike to the next general election - and beyond” if they don’t get a better pay deal.
The BMA’s most senior doctor, Dr Phil Banfield, today will call on Rishi Sunak to hold urgent talks to prevent the next round of NHS walkouts.
The "loss of trust" between doctors and the Government is the worst it has been in his 30 years in the profession, he warned last night.
Speaking ahead of the BMA’s annual conference, he said it is an "absolute travesty" that doctors feel they have no other choice than to take strike action.
Later this month, junior doctors are planning to stage the largest walkout in the history of the NHS - a five-day walkout from July 13-18.
Teachers, civil servants and train drivers walk out in biggest strike in decade
Health Secretary Steve Barclay failed to confirm he would follow the recommendations of the independent pay review body (Mark Thomas/REX/Shutterstock)And consultants - the most senior doctors in the NHS - are planning to stage industrial action on July 20-21, where they will only provide scaled-back "Christmas day cover".
The BMA wants ministers to enter talks using the conciliation service Acas, blasting a precondition not to get round the table when strikes are planned as a "completely artificial red line".
Health Secretary Steve Barclay has insisted his door is still open for negotiations but yesterday failed to confirm he would follow the recommendations of the independent pay review body.
"Of course we need to look at the wider pressures in terms of inflation... we need to look at these things in the round. That's what we did last time, which is why we made adjustments,” the Tory minister told Sky’s the Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme.
Paramedics, nurses and physiotherapists have already been given a 5% pay rise this year following a series of strikes.
Head of NHS England Amanda Pritchard said strikes can't "become business as usual for the NHS" (PA)Dr Banfield said: "The loss of trust that has happened between this government and the medical profession I've never seen before.
"We've asked for multiple meetings and because of the dispute, they have been declined. It's really sad for the NHS to be in this state.
“It is a complete fallacy that to solve the doctors dispute is unaffordable, it costs more to not fix it than to fix it. It is an absolute travesty that we're in the position where doctors feel that there is no alternative but to take strike action."
But Mr Barclay accused junior doctors of "suddenly" walking away from talks.
"We were in the middle of discussing some of those wider non-pay issues. It was the junior doctors suddenly who walked away," he said.
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Thousands of appointments and operations have been cancelled with paramedics, nurses and doctors all among those to strike during this latest wave of action (Steve Taylor/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock)He added there are areas of reform in NHS consultants' contracts the Government is "open to discussing".
"We stand ready to have discussions. There's other things for example in the contract that could be reformed, in the way it often values time over experience, so the pay progression through the consultants' contracts, so there's things we're open to discussing,” he told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme.
NHS England boss Amanda Pritchard said that pay was a matter for unions and ministers, but she warned: "There has been a significant amount of disruption and that is only, at the moment, going to get more significant as we hit the next round of strikes.
"It is patients that are paying the price for the fact that all sides have not yet managed to reach a resolution.
"The sooner that we can being this to an end the better. We can't let it become business as usual for the NHS."
Brits 'penalised' for living longer
The British public are being "penalised" for living longer as funding for the NHS has "not lived up to what is needed", top doctor Dr Phil Banfield has warned.
The chairman of council at the BMA said the Government does not appear to "recognise the value of the NHS".
He said that politicians "promise everything to the people and yet fail in their promises to the staff".
And he highlighted that the average European country is paying far more for healthcare, leaving Britain lagging behind in terms of funding.
But he said that he is still "immensely proud" to work in the health service - which is celebrating its 75th anniversary on July 5.
Dr Banfield said the Government does not appear to "recognise the value of the NHS" (Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)Dr Banfield said: "If we go back to the start of the NHS, it was based on the premise that once you made everyone better, everyone would be well and therefore the NHS would need to treat fewer and fewer patients.
"And of course, what's happened is success has meant that people have been living longer and the NHS has expanded in the things that it can do.”
But the doctors' union chairman, who started in medicine over 30 years ago, added: “It's almost as if the patients, the population, have been penalised for now living longer because the investment in the NHS has just not lived up to what is needed."
He continued: "The difficulty is that politicians promise everything to the people and yet just fail in their promises to the staff and the current issue, predominantly in terms of staffing, is a lack of value in nurses as well as doctors, and it's driving nurses and doctors out of the health service.
"We are a shrinking health service with increasing need and that just doesn't square the circle.
"If you have a look at the investment that the Government should have put in, if they were investing up to the European average over the last 10 years, they're over £40billion short."
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