Junior doctors join picket lines less than a fortnight after starting NHS jobs
Junior doctors have begun their fifth round of strikes with some newly qualified joining picket lines just days after starting their first NHS jobs.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has insisted there will be no negotiations on pay for medics in England as it emerged the bitter dispute has already cost the NHS £1billion. Foundation Year 1 doctors started their first roles after medical school on Wednesday August 2 - just nine days ago.
Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chair of the British Medical Association's junior doctors committee, said: "We are now at the stage where a whole new cohort of junior doctors is entering the profession, only to be immediately given no choice by the Government but to go on strike for their future.
Junior doctors are holding a four-day walkout (Getty Images)"The Government should be ashamed that this is the state of the profession they are presenting to our newest doctors. If they want a health service that retains this talent for decades to come, they need to come to the table - not in weeks, not in months, but today. This dispute should never have gone on so long."
Dr Majd Al Bakry, 24, said most medical students graduate with £100,000 of debt. He said: "We are actually the ones the most affected because we still have many, many years to go in our careers and the pay cuts that we're facing will compound on us the most.
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"I think everyone in the system is kind of fed up. And this is affecting everyone, both financially, their mental health and their productivity, and this, in a way, compromises patient safety. We have been to medical school for five or six years on average, which prepares us for the job. But when we're understaffed, it becomes really challenging when you have just started working when we have to see many patients more than we would be expected to really care for."
The BMA says doctors’ pay has fallen by around a third in real terms since 2008 and wants a firm commitment to reverse those below-inflation awards in the coming years. The Government has given junior doctors a 6% rise along with an additional consolidated £1,250 increase which it describes as an "average increase of around 8.8%".
NHS Providers, which represents hospital leaders, says the previous four junior doctor strikes have cost the NHS about £1 billion. Chief executive Sir Julian Hartley said hospital trusts were having to "pay premium rates to consultants" to cover the roles of junior doctors while they were on picket lines.
The walkouts are expected to lead to one million procedures and appointments being cancelled and rearranged by the time the round of action is over in four days' time. The knock on effect of these means the real number of disrupted appointments is likely double this. The latest round of strike action from British Medical Association saw junior doctors in England walk out from 7am yesterday and the strike will end at 7am on Tuesday.
Junior doctor Sumi Manirajan, deputy co-chair of the BMA's UK doctor committee, spoke on the picket line outside University College Hospital, London. The 29-year-old, who has been a junior doctor for three years, said: "All we're asking for is our pay to go back to the 2008 levels, we're not asking for a pay rise.
"What this means in real terms is we're asking for a billion pounds to be invested into the NHS workforce, the Government have already wasted a billion pounds on the strike action today.
"Every day I see doctors that are at burnout point or actively looking to leave the NHS. My friends have left the NHS after a year of service and have gone to Australia. They talk about how much better they are treated in Australia.”
Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay warned that patients are "bearing the brunt of the impact of continuous strikes" and the latest spell "will cause more appointments and procedures to be postponed".
He added: "My door is always open to discuss how to improve doctors' working lives, but this pay award is final so I urge the BMA to end its strikes immediately."
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