Young doctors in England are waiting for a call from the new Labour government after officials promised to start pay negotiations from ‘day one’.
Health leaders have called on the government to resolve the long-running conflict as a “priority” after it emerged tens of thousands of appointments were postponed as a result of the recent five-day strike.
NHS England reported that 67,034 appointments, procedures and operations were postponed as a result of the strike. At the height of the action, 23,001 staff were absent.
It This means that 1,491,303 appointments have been postponed since strikes across the NHS, involving doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and paramedics, began in late 2022.
But not all NHS hospitals have provided figures on cancelled appointments, so the true scale of disruption is likely to be higher.
In the latest blow to patients, 67,034 hospital appointments in England were postponed due to a five-day strike by British Medical Association (BMA) junior doctors earlier this week
Health authorities have also said that the true impact of strikes is masked by the numbers, as many hospitals have stopped scheduling surgeries and other appointments on announced strike days.
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said: “These figures clearly show the impact this latest round of strikes has had on patients, with more than 67,000 appointments postponed in recent days.
“But we know that in reality it is probably even higher.”
Latest figures from NHS England show that around 6.33 million patients were waiting for 7.57 million treatments in England at the end of April.
This is an increase compared to the 6.29 million patients and 7.54 million treatments at the end of March.
More than 300,000 people had been waiting for over a year, compared to fewer than 2,000 before the pandemic.
By comparison, when the pandemic reached the UK, around 4.4 million people were trapped in the system.
Trainee doctors in the NHS put down their stethoscopes and went on strike for five days from 27 June.
The latest strike was the eleventh strike by young doctors in twenty months.
The BMA claims the demands are aimed at ‘restoring wages’, as previous pay rises for NHS medics since 2008 have failed to keep pace with inflation.
The committee of young doctors had been in talks with the government for three months to reach an agreement before the strike.
But the talks broke down despite both sides confirming last month that they had engaged a mediator to try to break the impasse.
At the time BMA bosses claimed the government had not made a credible offer and that junior doctors were ‘fed up and out of patience’.
Your browser does not support iframes.
Junior doctors in their first year now have a basic salary of £32,300, while those with three years’ experience earn £43,900. The most senior earn £63,100
Professor Sir Stephen Powis added: ‘I am extremely grateful to the staff who worked so hard to keep patients safe and prioritise care for those who needed it most, during times of high demand for emergency and urgent care.
‘Colleagues across the NHS are now doing everything they can to ensure that patients who were due to have a consultation, test or treatment are rescheduled as soon as possible.’
During a campaign visit to Staffordshire last week, Sir Keir Starmer told reporters: ‘This is a problem that the (Conservative) government has failed to solve… what we are going to do is make sure that we start the discussion from day one.’
The BMA’s young doctors committee has said Labour’s comments about pay rises being “a journey not an event” are in line with its pay recovery targets.
But Labour’s Wes Streeting has said he would not grant the 35 percent pay rise he requested. If he did grant the demand, “any union worth its salt” would come back with the same request the following year, Streeting said.
He said there was “room for discussion” on pay and that negotiations should take place on how to improve working conditions for doctors in training.
The wave of strikes hitting the NHS since December 2022 has cost the NHS more than £3 billion.
Junior doctors in their first year now have a basic salary of £32,300, while those with three years’ experience earn £43,900. The most senior doctors earn £63,100.
Ministers have previously offered young doctors an average salary increase of 8.8 percent for the 2023/2024 budget year.
However, the increase was larger for first-year doctors, who received a 10.3 percent raise.
Ministers insisted this was the final offer. But former Health Minister Victoria Atkins offered medics a further three per cent on top of this increase.
The union said at the time that this improved amount was still “completely insufficient”.
In April, advisers in England accepted an offer from the government, ending an industrial dispute that had been going on for more than a year.