Tag: British Medical Association

NHS consultants have decided to walk out in protest over lower pay next month.

On July 20 and 21, 86% of British Medical Association (BMA) members supported the walkout.

More than 24,000 consultants in England participated in the election, with a 71% turnout, and 20,741 voting in favour of a strike.

It will happen just a few days after the junior physicians’ five-day strike, which is scheduled to end on the 18th.

BMA consultants committee chair Dr Vishal Sharma said the vote showed how ‘furious’ they were at being repeatedly devalued by the government – and calls for a ‘credible’ pay offer.

The BMA says take-home pay for consultants in England has fallen by 35% since 2008/9.

The industrial action will take the form of ‘Christmas Day cover’, meaning most routine and elective services will be cancelled but full emergency cover will remain in place.

Dr Sharma added: ‘We know consultants don’t take the decision around industrial action lightly, but this vote shows how furious they are at being repeatedly devalued by government.

‘Consultants are not worth a third less than we were 15 years ago and have had enough.

‘Consultants don’t want to have to take industrial action, but have been left with no option in the face of a government that continues to cut our pay year after year.

‘However, it is not too late to avert strike action and the government simply needs to come back to us with a credible offer that we can put to our members.

‘We are simply asking for fairness to ensure there is a pay settlement that begins to reverse the real-terms pay decline we have suffered and a commitment to fully reform the pay review process to ensure it can make truly independent recommendations in the future that take into account historical losses so that we don’t find ourselves in this situation again.

‘But if they refuse, it is with a heavy heart that we will take action next month. We will prioritise patient safety and continue to provide emergency care, in-keeping with the level of services available on Christmas Day.

‘Consultants are the NHS’s most experienced, highly-skilled clinicians, and are responsible not just for providing specialist care patients, but also leading entire services and training the doctors of the future.

‘The government can and must fix consultant pay now and for the future. Failure to do so will lead consultants to leave the NHS and the country, or towards retirement before their time.

‘The loss of this expertise would be devastating for services, patients and the future of the NHS.’

Earlier today the threat of further strikes by Royal College of Nursing (RCN) members ended because a ballot on further industrial action failed to meet the legal threshold.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: ‘We hugely value the work of NHS consultants and it is disappointing the BMA consultants have voted to take strike action.

‘Consultants received a 4.5% pay uplift last financial year, increasing average earnings to around £128,000, and they will benefit from generous changes to pension taxation announced at budget.

‘Strikes are hugely disruptive for patients and put pressure on other NHS staff.

‘We’ve been engaging with the BMA consultants committee on their concerns already and stand ready to open talks again – we urge them to come to the negotiating table rather than proceeding with their proposed strike dates.

‘We urge the BMA to carefully consider the likely impact of any action on patients.’

Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: ‘Trust leaders, staff and patients are dreading industrial action by consultants next month hard on the heels of a five-day strike by junior doctors.

‘A double whammy of consultants resorting to two days of Christmas Day cover and a full walkout by junior doctors days earlier in the longest single strike ever seen in the NHS means disruption for many thousands of patients and yet more pressure on overstretched services. This is a huge risk for the NHS to manage.

‘July will be the eighth consecutive month of industrial action across the NHS.

‘More than 651,000 routine operations and appointments have had to be postponed already since December due to industrial action across the NHS with knock-on delays for many thousands more.

‘We understand how strongly doctors feel – the high turnout in the consultants’ vote shows just how strongly – and why they are striking.

‘Trust leaders will continue to do everything they can to limit disruption and keep patients safe, but that’s getting harder and more expensive with every strike.

‘These strikes don’t have to go ahead. There’s still time for the government and the doctors’ unions to settle their differences and find a way through.

‘The urgency can’t be overstated. Trust leaders want the government and unions to sit down, facilitated by a third party if necessary, to find a way to end strikes.’

Tomorrow will see the “biggest disruptive action in NHS history,” according to reports, as thousands of junior doctors go on strike.

Health administrators have cautioned that when British Medical Association employees strike, it will have a significant impact on essential services.

To prevent further burden on the already constrained systems, people are being cautioned to refrain from “risky behavior.”

The strikes are predicted to affect close to 300,000 appointments.
The event will start tomorrow and last until early Saturday morning.

Patients have been urged to continue to use 999 and A&E for life-threatening conditions but to use NHS 111 online, pharmacies and GPs for non-urgent issues

The strikes are the latest in a long-running dispute between public sector unions and the government across Britain and follow three days of walkouts in March.

Junior doctors are trying to secure a pay rise of around 35 percent, and the union has argued that since 2008-2009 medics have experienced a real-terms pay cut of more than 25 percent.

Matthew Taylor, the NHS Confederation chief executive said: ‘It is going to be an incredibly tough week. There will be 10-11 days where the NHS is not able to operate at full strength.

‘There is no point in hiding the fact that there will be risks to patients,’ he added, before urging the public: ‘Try to avoid risky behaviour because the NHS is not going to be able to provide the level of care it wants to provide.’

With the health service set to lose the ‘largest part of their workforce’ due to strikes, Mr Taylor said the government and British Medical Association (BMA) need to start negotiations.

Meanwhile, further strikes are feared in education after teaching unions rejected the government’s offer of a 4.5 percent pay rise and £1,000 one-off payment.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS England, said that while the service had been ‘preparing extensively’ for the strikes, ‘managing additional pressure’ was becoming more difficult.

He said: ‘This is set to be the most disruptive industrial action in NHS history, and the strikes tomorrow will bring immense pressures, coming on the back of a challenged, extended bank holiday weekend for staff and services.

‘Emergency, urgent and critical care will be prioritised.’

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, health secretary Steve Barclay argued that the BMA’s pay demands were ‘widely out of step with pay settlements in other parts of the public sector’.

Last month the health unions Unison, the Royal College of Nursing and GMB urged their members to back the government’s pay offer of a one-off bonus and consolidated pay rise of 5 percent for the 2023-24 financial year.

Barclay said: ‘Unfortunately, the decision by BMA junior doctors’ leaders to maintain an unrealistic position meant we were unable to make progress with talks.

‘It seems they are intent on maintaining a militant stance rather than working with the government and NHS management to meet the best interests of their members and of patients.’

The health secretary warned that the walkouts, which coincide with Easter school holidays, Ramadan and Passover, will pose a ‘considerable risk to patient safety’, echoing comments by senior NHS figures who are braced for severe delays to in-patient treatments.

A three-day strike action by junior doctors in March resulted in more than 175,000 patient appointments and procedures being cancelled or postponed, placing added strain on the health service as it tries to clear a waiting list backlog of about 7mn patients.

The NHS Confederation has estimated that as many as 250,000 operations and appointments could be cancelled or delayed as a result of the four-day strike.