Five-day doctor strike will go ahead, says BMA

A five-day doctor strike due to start in England on Friday by members of the British Medical Association will go-ahead, the union says.

It comes after hopes of a breakthrough had been raised, following five days of talks between the government and the BMA.

Those negotiations had focused on working conditions for resident doctors, the new name for junior doctors.

But the BMA said what was being offered was not enough - and achieving better pay remained the key issue.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting had written to the BMA earlier on Tuesday saying the talks had been constructive and he wanted to continue them, but only if they postponed strike action.

BMA resident doctors committee co-chairs Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt said they had tried to reach a compromise during the talks.

"We have always said that no doctor wants to strike and all it would take to avoid it is a credible path to pay restoration offered by the government.

"We came to talks in good faith, keen to explore real solutions to the problems facing resident doctors today.

"Unfortunately, we did not receive an offer that would meet the scale of those challenges.

"While we were happy to discuss non-pay issues that affect doctors' finances we have always been upfront that this is at its core a pay dispute."

A range of different non-pay related issues have been discussed over the past week after Streeting made clear he could not shift on pay.

This included the government covering the cost of mandatory exam fees which can run to several thousand pounds during medical training as well as giving doctors more control over where they are placed during their first two years of training and more notice of rotas.

Ways of speeding up career progression after the first two years of training was also discussed. Resident doctors can spend 10 years or more in training.

Creating some sort of student loan forgiveness scheme for doctors, who can accrue debtes of up to £100,000 during university, was also brought up.

Resident doctors were awarded an average 5.4% pay rise for this financial year, following a 22% increase over the previous two years.

But the BMA says wages are still around 20% lower in real terms than in 2008 and are demanding "pay restoration".