Resident doctors in England to stage four-day strike in June

Resident doctors in England will next month stage the 16th strike in their long-running jobs and pay dispute, and have blamed the new health secretary for their decision. They will strike for four days from 7am on Monday 15 June until 6.59am on Friday 19 June. Announcing the move, the British Medical Association warned that resident doctors would mount a further stoppage in July unless progress towards meeting their demands was made. Next month’s 96-hour action will be the 16th that resident – formerly junior – doctors have undertaken since their first stoppage in March 2023. It will disrupt NHS care and force hospitals to rearrange tens of thousands of diagnostic tests, outpatient appointments and operations. The BMA wants England’s 75,000 resident doctors to be given a pay increase that will make up for what they say is the 26% loss in the real-terms value of their salaries since 2008-09. The doctors’ union and professional body is also urging the NHS to hugely expand the number of training places for resident doctors to pursue careers in medical specialties. The BMA represents about 55,000 of those 75,000 medics. However, hopes of a resolution to the dispute look as far away as ever as James Murray, who succeeded Wes Streeting as health secretary on 14 May, dismissed their pay claim as “unrealistic, unaffordable, and unsustainable”. James Murray, the new health secretary, said the BMA’s demands were ‘simply not grounds for more strike action’. …