The government has been branded “an irrational partner” by the co chair of BMA’s junior doctors’ committee, who said that its refusal to negotiate while strikes are ongoing is “madness”.
It’s understood the final offer had not been made to junior doctors by the Health Secretary Victoria Atkins before the BMA’s deadline.
However the government’s position is that it won’t resume talks when strikes have been called.
“For the government to have an offer, not negotiate, not provide that offer, let the strikes go on is completely reckless, it’s actually madness and it’s behaviour of an irrational partner,” Dr Robert Laurenson told Sky News at the picket line in central London.
“The government have the power to sort this out by giving us something sensible to put to our members, and until they do that we have nothing to put to our members,” he added.
Reports suggested an additional pay rise of around 3% – on top of the 8.8% recommended by the independent pay review body in April – was on the table from the government, but that increase doesn’t come near to restoring junior doctors’ pay to 2008 levels, which is what the union is calling for.
“It falls markedly short of the massive pay erosion doctors have faced over the last 15 years,” Dr Laurenson told Sky News.
“No doctor is worth a penny less than they worth in 2008,” he added.
“I think really the government needs to start thinking in terms of the number of years this is going to take to resolve.”
He warned that the NHS will continue facing winter crises until it can retain doctors, many of whom are leaving for better paid jobs abroad, the union says, and recruit more into the profession.
Dr Laurenson laid the blame for the strikes solely at the government’s door.
“We’ve been in dispute now for 14 months and we deliberately avoided last winter and started our action in March, and that’s because we thought we’d be able to get round the table with the government and explain the issues thoroughly,” he said.
“But it took them six months to come to the table in May, and after May it took them another six months, so all of the delays have been caused by the government and they’ve pushed us to the dead of the winter.”
Despite the tough rhetoric, Dr Laurenson says that he is hopeful a pay deal could be reached soon.
“The government are close, the secretary of state has been more understanding, they just need to make that one last step to get the deal across the table, across the line, but they need to make that step,” he said.
“If they don’t then we’ll have to keep going into 2024 and beyond.”
