RESIDENT doctors across England are staging a full walkout from 7am today until 6.59am tomorrow.
The British Medical Association says years of pay erosion and a deepening training crisis have left the workforce unable to continue without meaningful negotiations.
BMA chair Dr Tom Dolphin said long-term cuts to real-terms pay have pushed resident doctors far behind other public sector workers and left the most junior staff earning levels far removed from the responsibility they carry.
‘When we started the dispute, the lowest level of the resident doctors were being paid £14 an hour,’ he said, noting that ministers had previously described pay restoration as a ‘journey’ but had taken no steps to complete it.
The BMA says that a third of all resident doctors surveyed had no job secured from August, rising to 52 per cent among financial year 2s, and that financial year 1 members have now voted in favour of industrial action over the training crisis.
With the government refusing to negotiate on pay, the union says resident doctors must use their mandates to strike over both pay erosion and the shortage of training posts.
According to the BMA, pay erosion against the retail price index (RPI) now stands at 21 per cent, meaning resident doctors are effectively working more than a fifth of their time for free.
A 26 per cent uplift is needed to reverse the loss.
Challenged about the claimed £1.7bn impact of previous strikes, Dr Tom Dolphin replied: ‘Who do you think is treating the cancer patients? It’s the doctors.’
He rejected claims that the action threatens political stability, calling such suggestions ‘implausible’, while stressing that doctors do not want patients to suffer.
‘I completely get that. And I’m sorry that it’s happening,’ he said.
Meanwhile, ministers are pressing ahead with plans that will sack 18,000 NHS staff, after Rachel Reeves rejected Wes Streeting’s request for an emergency £1bn to cover the cost of the job losses.
The cuts include not only administrative roles but thousands of highly trained nurses and specialists whose work supports public health and care coordination.
The Treasury has instead allowed the Department of Health and Social Care to overspend this year on the condition that it faces an equivalent reduction in 2026-27.
Streeting had spent months arguing for additional funding so England’s 42 integrated care boards could complete the reduction of nearly half their 25,000-strong workforce.
He is expected to tell the NHS Providers’ annual conference that the cuts are under way, framing the removal of ‘18,000 administrative posts’ as an effort to reduce ‘red tape’.