The British Medical Association (BMA) has confirmed its junior doctor members across England will strike for three days from Monday 13 March.
The BMA said the decision followed the failure of health secretary Steve Barclay to come to the table and negotiate a reversal of pay cuts of more than 26%, which left junior doctors in England with “no option” but to take industrial action for three days from Monday 13 March.
Last week the BMA revealed more than 77% of the 47,600 junior doctors in England eligible to vote had their say with 98% of the 37,000 votes cast in favour of strike action.
Employers have now been notified that the 72-hour walk out will go ahead.
The BMA claimed that twice in the past week junior doctors had called upon health and social care secretary Steve Barclay to meet with them urgently, but so far no date had been forthcoming.
It added its meeting with Department of Health civil servants earlier this week yielded “nothing in terms of meaningful progress” and Barclay refused to attend.
The co-chairmen of the BMA junior doctors’ committee, Dr Rob Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, said patients and public alike needed to know the blame for the strike action lay squarely at the government’s door.
Left with no option
“Make no mistake, this strike was absolutely in the government’s gift to avert; they know it, we know it and our patients also need to know it,” they said in a joint statement.
“We have tried, since last summer, to get each health secretary we have had, round the negotiating table. We have written many times and even as late as yesterday we were hopeful Steve Barclay would recognise the need to meet with us to find a workable solution that could have averted this strike.
“We have not been told why we have not been offered intensive negotiations nor what we need to do for the government to begin negotiations with us. We are left with no option but to proceed with this action.”
“The fact that so many junior doctors in England have voted yes for strike action should leave ministers in absolutely no doubt what we have known for a long time and have been trying to tell them, we are demoralised, angry and no longer willing to work for wages that have seen a real terms decline of over 26% in the past 15 years.
“This, together with the stress and exhaustion of working in an NHS in crisis, has brought us to this moment, brought us to a 72 hour walk out.”
“How in all conscience, can the health secretary continue to put his head in the sand and hope that by not meeting with us, this crisis of his government’s making, will somehow just disappear?
“It won’t, and patients and the public will continue to feel the brunt of his inaction, until he starts to negotiate with us and we agree a deal that truly values junior doctors and pays us what we are worth.”