UK

Rishi Sunak tells striking doctors to take pay deal and ‘get back to treating patients’

Michael Searles
Tue, August 15, 2023 

Rishi Sunak speaks to staff and patients during a visit to Milton Keynes University Hospital.

 - Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street/

Junior doctors should accept the pay deal on offer so “we can all get back to treating patients and getting waiting lists down”, Rishi Sunak has said.

The Prime Minister said progress on tackling record NHS backlogs “has stalled because of the industrial action” and the current pay offer is a larger increase than “almost every other workforce in the public sector”.

Junior doctors finished a 96-hour walkout at 7am on Tuesday - their fifth round of action - which has cost the NHS in excess of £1 billion.

Speaking from Buckinghamshire Hospital to announce £250 million funding for 900 new NHS beds, Mr Sunak said: “I’m pleased that we’ve practically eliminated the number of people waiting two years. Earlier this year we practically eliminated the number of people waiting one-and-a-half years.

“Unfortunately, the progress that we were making has stalled because of the industrial action.”

The latest figures show 7.6 million people are on the waiting list. The NHS missed a target to eliminate the number of patients waiting 18-months by April, which now stands at 7,000.

Junior doctors rally near Downing Street while striking in London on Friday, - Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

The British Medical Association (BMA) is seeking “pay restoration” of 35 per cent for 15 years of under-inflation pay rises, but the Government has said its current offer of 8.8 per cent on average is “final”.

Mr Sunak said the Government had settled pay negotiations “with the vast majority of workers in the public sector” and that in the NHS “over a million NHS workers accepted” the deal.

“That includes nurses, and many others, half a dozen unions in the NHS staff council recommended that their members accepted that offer, and they have,” he said. “I’m very grateful to them for that.”

He added: “A nine per cent pay increase for a typical junior doctor. That is a larger pay increase than almost every other workforce in the public sector.

“Now, we’ve been very clear, we think that is fair, we’ve accepted it in full, and now as I’ve said previously, we’d urge junior doctors and consultants to accept the recommendations of an independent body.”

Hospital consultants have strike dates planned for later in Augst and September.

NHS officials have said that more than one million operations and appointments are likely to have been postponed due to strikes.

Dr Rob Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chairmen of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, said: “This Government and the Health Secretary have grown increasingly intransigent, belligerent and unwilling to talk about how we can end this dispute, and indeed are now expending more energy on making spurious claims about the reasons for our legitimate campaign than they are about settling the dispute.”