The health secretary has blasted doctors as “self-indulgent” and “dangerous” after they voted to push ahead with a five-day strike in the run-up to Christmas.
The British Medical Association’s (BMA) resident doctor members roundly rejected a last-minute offer from Wes Streeting to halt the walkout, with medics set to join the picket lines on Wednesday from 7am.
The move prompted warnings of a “very difficult Christmas” for the NHS amid fears the strike will put patients at risk due to a surge in cases of “super flu” sweeping the nation. Flu cases in hospitals in England are at a record level for this time of year.
The prime minister said he was “gutted” by the news as he joined Mr Streeting in appealing to doctors to ignore their union and go to work this week anyway, warning they were losing the public’s sympathy over the dispute.
Mr Streeting warned that the dates, just before the Christmas bank holidays, represented a “different magnitude of risk” to previous industrial action.
He accused the BMA of choosing the timing to “inflict damage on the NHS at the moment of maximum danger” and hit out at their refusal to postpone until January.
“There is no need for these strikes to go ahead this week, and it reveals the BMA’s shocking disregard for patient safety and for other NHS staff,” he said. “These strikes are self-indulgent, irresponsible and dangerous.”
He continued: “I am appealing to ordinary resident doctors to go to work this week. There is a different magnitude of risk in striking at this moment. Abandoning your patients in their hour of greatest need goes against everything a career in medicine is meant to be about.”
Mr Streeting had offered the union a new deal that included greater access to specialist training posts and money for expenses such as exam fees, but, crucially, no extra pay.
But the offer was rejected, with the BMA denouncing it as “too little, too late”. A total of 83 per cent of doctors voted to continue with the strike, compared to 17 per cent who voted against, on a turnout of 65 per cent.
Dr Jack Fletcher, the chairman of the BMA’s resident doctors committee, said: “Tens of thousands of frontline doctors have come together to say ‘no’ to what is clearly too little, too late.
“This week’s strike is still entirely avoidable – the health secretary should now work with us in the short time we have left to come up with a credible offer to end this jobs crisis and avert the real-terms pay cuts he is pushing in 2026.”
Sir Keir condemned the strikes as “irresponsible”.
He told MPs on the Commons Liaison Committee he was “very gutted. Ten out of ten. It’s irresponsible at any time, particularly at the moment.
He added: “It comes off the back of a very substantial pay increase over the last year or so. There’s a deal that we’ve put on the table that could have been taken forward and so I think its irresponsible action by the BMA and not for the first time.”
He added: “I would appeal to the doctors themselves to push back against the BMA. They are losing the sympathy of the public. They are losing the support of their colleagues.”
The BMA said it “remains committed to ensuring patient safety” during the walkout. But hospital leaders said the strikes come as the NHS “needs all hands on deck”.
Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “This vote is a bitter pill which will inevitably result in harm to patients and damage to the NHS.
“We had hoped that the government’s recent updated offer would be enough to head off another walkout at a time when so many people are suffering with flu, and the NHS needs all hands on deck.
“Trust leaders and staff will be working now to minimise the impact of the strike, but sadly it will mean further disruption and delays, and a very difficult Christmas for the health service.”
Rory Deighton, acute and community care director at the NHS Confederation, described the vote as “bitterly disappointing”.
Mr Streeting told broadcasters that is it “now clear” that “what these strikes are really about is the BMA’s totally unrealistic demand for another 26 per cent on top of the 28.9 per cent pay rise they’ve already had”.
He said he offered to postpone walkouts until January “because of the enormous risk to patients and the NHS at the worst possible time”.
Last week a poll by YouGov found opposition to the strikes at a record high, with Britons 53 per cent to 38 per cent against.
Figures released by the health service last week show that flu cases jumped by more than 55 per cent in a week. Some hospitals across the country have asked staff, patients and visitors to wear face masks to cut the spread of flu, while others have gone in and out of critical incident status due to the high number of people attending A&E.
Shadow health secretary Stuart Andrew said: “We Conservatives repeatedly warned Labour that by giving inflation-busting pay rises last year they would set a dangerous precedent. “And now we see the consequences of their capitulation, with more disruption, more demands and no end in sight.”