Christmas doctors’ strike to go ahead after BMA rejects Streeting’s offer as flu cases surge: Latest

On average, 2,660 patients were admitted to hospitals in England with the infection every day in the week between 4 December and 11 December, a record for this time of year according to NHS England.

This is up 55 per cent on the first week of December, when the average daily admission was 1,717.

The outbreak follows the biggest flu season in Australia’s history, which is often seen as an accurate predictor of what the UK can expect.

Health secretary Wes Streeting has issued a statement following the BMA’s announcement its members will go on strike on Wednesday.

He said: “The BMA has chosen Christmas strikes to inflict damage on the NHS at the moment of maximum danger, refusing the postpone them to January to help patients and other NHS staff cope over Christmas. 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. These strikes are self-indulgent, irresponsible and dangerous.

“The government’s offer would have halved competition for jobs and put more money in resident doctors’ pockets, but the BMA has again rejected it because it doesn’t meet their ask of a further 26 per cent pay rise. Resident doctors have already had a 28.9 per cent pay rise – there is no justification for striking just because this fantasy demand has not been met.

“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.

“The entire focus of my department and the NHS team will now be on getting the health service through the double whammy of flu and strikes. We have already vaccinated 17 million people, 170,000 more than last year, and we will be working intensively with frontline leaders to prepare for the coming disruption.”

The Independent’s Whitehall editor Kate Devlin reports:

A planned NHS walk out over five consecutive days in the run-up to Christmas will go ahead after resident doctors overwhelmingly voted to reject a new offer from the government.

Resident doctors in England voted by 83 per cent to 17 per cent to carry on with strike action, which will start at 7am on 17 December and end at 7am on 22 December, on a turnout of 65 per cent.

The health secretary Wes Streeting has branded the strike “irresponsible”, warning that the dates, just before the Christmas bank holidays and when the NHS is often in the midst of a ‘winter crisis’, represents a “different magnitude of risk” to previous industrial action.

Resident doctors in England will go on strike from 7am on 17 December after members voted to reject the government’s offer, the British Medical Association (BMA) has said.

The Covid-19 inquiry received “generally positive evidence” about the impact of the coronavirus jobs retention scheme, known as furlough, the inquiry has heard.

Mr Sunak said his team worked with a number of expert bodies and accounting firms, as well as with trade unions, to get the scheme right.

“The overall policy was quite simple, but underneath there was a lot of detail,” he said.

Rishi Sunak has been giving evidence on the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic this morning.

He has spoken on “panic” in the early days, employment, and advice the government was given. Here is everything you need to know so far:

• Mr Sunak said “enormous uncertainty” was the “number one challenge” Downing Street faced during the pandemic

• The former chancellor said his team had to accept “we weren’t going to get everything right straight away” but he did not want to let “perfect be the enemy of the good”

• He added the first few weeks of response was an “incredibly intense period” that felt like doing a new Budget every two days

• Mr Sunak said the government was advised not to bring in Covid interventions “too early” in order to make sure there was public acceptance of them

• The former chancellor admitted it “wasn’t possible to save every single job” but that the government was “successful” in avoiding mass unemployment

Rishi Sunak has said the government was able to avoid mass unemployment through the introduction to the furlough scheme during the pandemic.

Mr Sunak also said the impact on jobs was “considerably better than what anyone had forecast at the early stages of the pandemic”.

The coronavirus job retention scheme, known as furlough, was announced my Mr Sunak in March 2020.

The Independent’s Whitehall editor Kate Devlin reports:

Speaking about what was happening in the gilt markets at the start of the pandemic Rishi Sunak said that period “was intense and filled with anxiety, certainly for me”.

He said at one point he was “worried about the UK’s ability to fund itself”, and so worked out a system where the Bank of England would act as a “backstop”.

The Independent’s Whitehall editor Kate Devlin reports:

Nearly one in eight people in the UK would be unemployed in the wake of the pandemic according to early forecasts, Rishi Sunak has told the Covid inquiry. He also described the crisis as “unique”.

He said he knew “there was no such thing as a free lunch” and had tried to target measures announced by the Treasury as much as possible.

The inquiry has not yet got on to questioning Mr Sunak about his controversial ‘eat out to help out’ scheme in the summer of 2020.