Resident doctors refuse to rule out further strikes

Resident doctors are refusing to rule out further strikes as their current industrial action comes to an end.

The government and the British Medical Association (BMA) have been called on by hospital leaders to end the strikes.

The industrial action has caused five days of disruption across the NHS in England after the strike action started on Friday.

Co chairs of the BMAs Resident Doctors Committee (RDC) Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt said they will re-enter talks with the government.

Dr Ryan was asked by reporters will talks resume, he said, “I hope so. We have always said that our door is open for talks.

“Should he have called us over the weekend to say: ‘Come around the table, here’s an offer I’ve got’, we would have absolutely done so, with the idea that we could have called off the strike action.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t heard from him yet. That doesn’t mean that he’s not going to call us tomorrow – our door is always open.”

Dr Nieuwoudt said, “There does not need to be a single other day of industrial action at all.

“All Wes Streeting needs to do is come to us now and talk to us now, because that’s what doctors want and that’s what patients need.”

Asked if there will be more strikes, Dr Ryan added, “There doesn’t need to be a single day of strike action.

“Wes Streeting knows what he has to do. If he wants to resolve the dispute, he has to contact us and present a credible offer.

“We do have a mandate that is going all the way into January but… it’s a damn shame we have to do a single day of strike action and Mr Streeting can prevent that.”

She continued, “We’ve been very clear that we didn’t actually want to go on strike at all and I have no intention of continuing this forever.

“All we need is Mr Streeting to do what he said he was going to do, which was come to the negotiating table and present us an offer that is the next step on the journey to pay restoration.”

In a statement, the co-chairs of the RDC said: “Across the NHS, this means potentially thousands of UK doctors are left in employment limbo when patients desperately need their care.”

Dr Layla McCay, director of policy at NHS Confederation, told BBC Breakfast: “Resident doctors have recently had a very substantial increase in their pay and the Government has been pretty clear that at the moment, there isn’t more money to be negotiated.

“Clearly the Government is quite keen to have those discussions about other non-pay factors, like workforce conditions.

“I think that the hope of all healthcare leaders is that the BMA will get around the table with the Government and figure out a solution to this, because what absolutely nobody wants to see is any further cases of industrial action after this one.”