LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called on the union for resident doctors in England to reconsider a proposed pay and workforce deal, giving it 48 hours to accept the offer as he warned that planned strikes would hurt doctors and patients.
Writing in the Times newspaper, Keir Starmer said the British Medical Association (BMA) had taken a “reckless” step by refusing to put the offer to a vote of its members, while announcing six days of strikes in April.
So-called resident doctors in England, formerly known as junior doctors, are due to walk out from April 7 to April 13 after the BMA said last week that the government’s offer failed to address long-term pay erosion and staffing pressures in the National Health Service.
‘RECKLESS DECISION’, PM SAYS
Starmer said the offer would have delivered an above-inflation pay rise this year and taken total pay increases over three years to around 35%, alongside reforms to pay progression designed to reward experience more consistently.
“That is why walking away from this deal is the wrong decision. It is a reckless decision,” Starmer wrote in the newspaper on Monday. “And doing so without even giving resident doctors themselves the chance to vote on it makes it even worse.”
The deal also included reimbursement of mandatory exam fees, which can cost doctors thousands of pounds over the course of training, and the creation of up to 4,500 additional speciality training posts over three years.
“If this deal is not put to a vote, those opportunities will be lost,” Starmer said, urging the committee to give members a say and put the offer to a vote.
The BMA – which represents about 55,000 of the resident doctors who make up nearly half of the medical workforce – has argued that the proposed pay increase was below inflation and that the phased approach to pay progression risked locking in further real-terms losses.
Jack Fletcher, chair of the BMA’s resident doctors’ committee, said in response to Starmer’s criticism that the dispute was “not about arbitrary cut-offs”, adding that any deadline would fall away once a credible and sustainable offer was on the table.
He said the union was seeking to resume talks with the government on Tuesday with the aim of reaching a deal that could still avert the strikes.