Victoria Atkins says she wants to look at ‘pay and conditions’ for junior doctors but also says ‘many, many’ of them do not support BMA
Good morning. Junior hospital doctors in England are on the second day of a three-day strike. And they are planning a six-day strike in January. Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, has been doing a broadcast round this morning and, as well as starting her willingness to resume talks on pay and conditions if the strikes are called off, she also sought to drive a wedge between the BMA’s junior doctors committee and the thousands of medics it represents.
She said “many, many” doctors do not support what the BMA is doing, and she encouraged them, in effect, to make this clear to their union leadership.
The junior doctors committee decided the date of their strikes. They decided to do it three days in the run-up to Christmas and they have also now picked the worst week in the NHS’s calendar [the first week in January] to be on strike.
There will be many, many doctors listening to this who will be deeply uncomfortable that their committee has called these strikes at this time. And I would encourage anyone who feels like that, quietly, to consider whether this committee is representing their views.
Having managed to find fair and reasonable offers for consultants and for specialty doctors, I would say the proof is in the pudding, if you see what I mean. I have shown that I’m willing and keen to find agreements.
It’s not just about pay, of course this is really important and indeed this year alone, junior doctors have already had a pay rise of around 8.8%, the most-junior of doctors, the first and second year of doctors, they’ve had the highest pay rises within the range up to 10.3% because we understand as a government, we’ve heard what the doctors are saying to us.
But I also want to do more than that, I don’t just want to look at pay, I also want to look at their conditions because when I walk around hospitals, when I talk to doctors, they tell me one of the things they want to feel is valued. And I absolutely understand that and I want to work with them to enable that to happen.
We have always said if there are strikes happening at the moment affecting patients, affecting the public, we will not negotiate but the moment they call them off, I will be back round that table.
