In just a few days, doctors across England will stage strikes for five days. Hospitals are preparing for staff shortages from Friday until next Wednesday, hoping that bulked-up locum rates will attract enough ‘scabs’ to mitigate the walkouts. But now the BMA has taken aim at NHS bosses, warning that the decision not to cancel all routine appointments between 25 and 30 July will mean consultants are ‘spread too thinly’, leaving patients at risk. 

The Health Secretary’s refusal to budge on pay makes any other package a harder sell

During the last round of industrial action – which spanned 44 days across 2023 and 2024 – 1.5 million appointments were cancelled, with the strikes costing the health service around £1.5 billion. This time around, as up to 50,000 medics prepare to picket for better pay in action that could affect up to a quarter of a million patients, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has hit out at the BMA’s ‘completely unreasonable’ demands and warned of the potential cost of strikes to patients. While both sides agree the relationship between Labour’s Department of Health and the doctors’ union has been more ‘constructive’ than under previous Conservative governments, Streeting has remained firm that demands for full........

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