Wes Streeting in last-minute plea to doctors to call off strike

The Health Secretary is making a last-minute plea to resident doctors to call off their strike, but said the NHS would “do everything we can to keep the show on the road”.

Wes Streeting is urging members of the British Medical Association (BMA) to scrap their walkout, which is scheduled to last for five days from 7am on Friday, and said doctors have seen an average increase in pay of 28.9%.

Mr Streeting said he would not move further on pay, despite calls from the BMA for a 26% uplift to counter what it says is pay erosion over time.

NHS England chief executive, Sir Jim Mackey, has written to NHS trust leaders urging them to keep the majority of services operating during the strike and said rescheduling appointments and operations should “only happen in exceptional circumstances to safeguard patient safety”.

Sir Jim called for a “laser focus” on four priority areas, including maintaining emergency care and maternity services, ensuring efficient discharge of patients fit to go home, and “maintaining elective care to the fullest extent possible – with at least 95% of elective activity continuing compared with what would otherwise have been expected”.

The other key area is maintaining “priority treatments”, including urgent planned surgery and cancer care.

Mr Streeting told LBC Radio that when he had finished with media interviews on Wednesday morning, his first call “is with the chair of the BMA resident doctors’ committee to make a last-minute appeal for him to do the right thing and for his members to do the right thing”.

He added: “What’s frustrated me most of all is I have offered to go further on things that are out-of-pocket expenses for resident doctors to create the jobs that they’re crying out for.

“And what they often come back with is: ‘But you’re not moving on pay.'”

Asked about Sir Jim’s letter to health leaders to keep services open during the strike, Mr Streeting said: “I’m not pretending it’s going to be easy, I’m not saying that the target that Jim Mackey has set will necessarily be met, either.

“I think it is a challenging target, but we’ve got to do everything we can to keep the show on the road.”

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Mr Streeting said “safety is paramount” during the strike.

He added: “It is extremely frustrating, in fact, self-defeating that the BMA have chosen to go on strike, not least because this is the group of staff, the resident doctors, who’ve had a 28.9% pay rise from this Government – from me as Health Secretary.

“They’ve also had the highest pay increase of the entire public sector two years on the trot.

“And even after all of that, I have been sat around the table in good faith with BMA resident doctors to say: ‘I can’t move any more pay, we can’t afford to – look at the public finances, read the room’.

“What I can do is create 1,000 extra jobs right now that we need in training places, cancel things like the exam fees and portfolio other out-of-pocket expenses that they have complained about.

“So even after the 28.9% pay rise, I’ve also said that there are other things I can do and want to do to improve your life.

“I’ve got to be honest, if they are out on strike this week costing us just shy of a quarter of a billion pounds, some of the things I’ve offered as additional will no longer be affordable this year.

“So they’re not only setting back the NHS recovery, they’re not only disrupting care for patients, they’re also shooting themselves in the foot.”

BMA resident doctors’ committee chairman Dr Jack Fletcher said: “Sadly, we’ve still seen no new offer from the Government, or any progress that would persuade us to call off Friday’s action.

“As it stands, what the Secretary of State has put on the table will still see thousands of resident doctors turned away from jobs this year, while continuing to back a real-terms pay cut that the Government has suggested for doctors next year.

“I made clear to the Secretary of State this morning that without movement, we would be forced to go ahead as planned.

“We want to reach a deal on both pay and jobs, that delivers for doctors and patients, but the Government seems intent on preventing this.”