{"id":291739,"date":"2025-07-25T22:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T22:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/291739\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T22:50:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T22:50:11","slug":"fewer-resident-doctors-thought-to-have-gone-on-strike-than-in-last-years-nhs-stoppage-doctors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/291739\/","title":{"rendered":"Fewer resident doctors thought to have gone on strike than in last year\u2019s NHS stoppage | Doctors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands fewer resident doctors are thought to have joined picket lines on Friday during the first day of a five-day strike<\/a> compared with last year\u2019s mass turnout.<\/p>\n

Although NHS England<\/a> will only publish data on turnout and cancellations next week, hospital leaders are understood to have observed fewer resident doctors (previously known as junior doctors) on strike and less disruption to services than during the last round of industrial action, which ran from March 2023 until July 2024.<\/p>\n

While ministers and officials will not receive any statistics until after the five-day stoppage ends on Wednesday, there is a hope within government that the impact might be mitigated, in part by a lower strike turnout.<\/p>\n

The British Medical Association (BMA) is refusing to comment on how many of its members have joined the stoppage until it is over.<\/p>\n

The strike will continue until 7am on Wednesday. The public have been urged to keep coming forward for NHS<\/a> care during this period, and NHS England has urged hospital chief executives to keep routine operations and appointments and only reschedule if there is a risk to patient safety.<\/p>\n

The NHS chief executive, Jim Mackey, told broadcasters on Friday that the NHS was taking a new approach after learning from previous strikes that \u201charm to patients and disruption to patients was much broader than the original definitions\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cColleagues in the service have tried to keep as much going as humanly possible as well, and the early signs are that that\u2019s been achieved so far, but it is early doors,\u201d he said. \u201cThe thing that colleagues won\u2019t compromise is safety in the actual delivery. But it does look like people have really heard that. They\u2019re really pulling together to maximise the range of services possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mackey noted that further strikes were \u201cpossible\u201d given the BMA has a six-month mandate.<\/p>\n

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said the BMA\u2019s decision to hold the strike was a \u2018reckless and unnecessary action\u2019. Photograph: Jordan Pettitt\/PA<\/p>\n

Speaking shortly after the start of the strike on Friday morning at the NHS England headquarters in London, where officials are monitoring its impact, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, praised NHS staff whom, he said, were trying to limit its effects.<\/p>\n

This included, he said, \u201cmany resident doctors who have ignored their union and are turning up for work\u201d.<\/p>\n

Streeting said, however, that patients would feel the impact, saying: \u201cWe know that there have been operations, appointments and procedures already cancelled, and we know that there will be real challenges over the next five days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calling the BMA\u2019s decision to hold the strike a \u201creckless and unnecessary action\u201d, he added: \u201cWe won\u2019t let the BMA hold this country to ransom.\u201d<\/p>\n

The BMA has agreed to requests for doctors to come off picket lines and work in hospitals experiencing the most pressure. One doctor was told to return to work at Nottingham City hospital\u2019s neonatal intensive care unit over the weekend, and a request from Lewisham hospital in south London for two anaesthetists to work on Saturday was also accepted.<\/p>\n

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A smaller strike turnout has been expected because the BMA achieved a lesser mandate in the strike ballot than in 2023. Of 48,000 members, 55% voted, of whom 90% supported industrial action \u2013 representing less than half of members \u2013 compared with a turnout of 71.25% in 2023\u2019s expanded electorate, of whom 43,440 (98.37%) voted to go on strike.<\/p>\n

During the last round of 12 strikes in 2023 and 2024, nearly 1.5m appointments were rescheduled. In the final industrial action from 7am on Thursday 27 June to 7am on Tuesday 2 July, 23,001 staff were absent from work at the peak of the action.<\/p>\n

The BMA is asking for a rise of 29% over the next few years in order to achieve what it considers to be full pay restoration to pre-2008 levels, after the 2023 industrial action resulted in a pay bump of 22% to cover 2023-24 and 2024-25. At present, ministers have offered a 5.4% pay rise for 2025-26.<\/p>\n

Dr Tom Dolphin, the newly elected<\/a> BMA council chair, told the BBC that a \u2018clear, guaranteed pathway\u2019 to pay restoration would be required for resident doctors to return to work. Photograph: Teri Pengilley\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The BMA council chair, Dr Tom Dolphin<\/a>, told BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme that a \u201cclear, guaranteed pathway\u201d to pay restoration would be required for resident doctors to return to work<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cSo you\u2019ve got last year\u2019s pay offer which did indeed move us towards [pay restoration], but Wes Streeting himself said that pay restoration is a journey, not an event, implying that there would be further pay restoration to come, and we were expecting our pay to be restored in full \u2013 that\u2019s our campaign\u2019s goal. We got partway there, but then that came to a halt this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keir Starmer made a last-minute appeal to resident doctors, saying the strikes would \u201ccause real damage\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people do not support these strikes. They know they will cause real damage \u2026 These strikes threaten to turn back the clock on progress we have made in rebuilding the NHS over the last year, choking off the recovery,\u201d the prime minister said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands fewer resident doctors are thought to have joined picket lines on Friday during the first day of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-291739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114916322430127915","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}