Junior Doctors postpone strike action… but don’t expect it to last

The BMA Resident Doctors Committee has announced a delay to its planned strike action, which had been scheduled to take place from 15-19 June 2026. This would have followed the three rounds of five-day strike action that took place in 2025 (25-30 July, 14-19 October and 17-22 December 2025). In total, the BMA has spearheaded 16 rounds of walkouts since 2023, in protest against what they perceive as long-term pay erosion, and substandard working conditions.

The government has put a new offer to the BMA, which it has said it will put to its members for a vote. If members reject the offer, then the likelihood of further strikes will be back on the table.

For context, Junior Doctors have received pay rises worth 33% over the past four years, including a 22.3% pay increase agreed in 2024. This is well above the level of private sector pay inflation over the same period, and yet the greed of the BMA and its members seemingly knows no limits, as the government has been forced into another embarrassing capitulation, offering yet more incentives for them to simply do their jobs.

They continue to insist on full pay restoration to 2008 levels, adjusted for inflation to date. They seem totally unwilling to recognise the economic effects of the two recessions that have taken place since then, and the devastating impact of COVID lockdown strategy that continues to blight the British (and global) economy.

They desire to live in a world where these things didn’t happen, and to be paid as they would have been. This despite the fact that the majority of junior doctors had not even begun their training in 2008.

Given that NHS training for doctors typically spans a period of 5-7 years, the earliest that any current junior doctors would have begun their training would be around 2018/19. At that time, they were fully aware of what the pay scales were, and how these may have been impacted by wage suppression due to challenging economic conditions since 2008 and through the austerity years.

And yet even with this knowledge they chose to enter the profession anyway, and now wish to wind the clock back to many, many years before their training began and seek an unrealistic and unjustified pay restoration. This despite the fact that they have already accepted pay rises significantly in excess of any other public sector department over the past four years.

If they believe that they have the general public on their side in this dispute then they are severely mistaken. Public support for their continued demands subsided a long time ago. Now, each time a new strike is announced, the majority of the public feel a strong sense of frustration and injustice.

At a time when all public services are stretched, when (thanks to our incompetent Chancellor) UK borrowing is growing faster than any other nation on earth with the exception of Botswana, when the British public are encumbered with the biggest tax burden since the Second World War, and any attempts to make cuts to welfare spending are voted down by Labour back benchers, the state can simply not afford to continue bowing down to the demands of these greedy medics.

We need our doctors, it is true. Pay rates should be competitive with our European counterparts if we wish to retain our best and brightest, and it is a matter of public safety that doctors are not asked to work unreasonable hours or in substandard conditions. I have some degree of sympathy for all of these complaints.

But when you have already received a 33% pay rise, it is unjustifiable to come back to the table one year later and demand more.

Not least of all, because the junior doctors are not willing to agree to any concessions when it comes to their gold-plated pensions (as high as 30% for senior pay grades), or the double pay they receive for working overtime, unsociable hours or weekends.

As has been pointed out in a previous piece here (https://www.triggeringlefties.com/post/bma-prove-capitulating-to-unions-akin-to-negotiating-with-terrorists), meekly capitulating to the greedy demands of the BMA is akin to negotiating to terrorists. The reason we have a policy of not doing this, is that negotiating emboldens other wannabe terrorists, and encourages further acts of terror. There are echoes here with the approach that the BMA have continually taken to negotiations with the Labour government.

They are not interested in the wider economic picture. They don’t care about how it impacts the negotiating position of other unions and other industries. And they certainly do not care about the reduction in funding for other public services that become inevitable when the government is willing to acquiesce to their greed.

The governments’ job is to balance all of these considerations, for the treasury to prepare the relevant calculations, and then to stick to a pay rise offer that is affordable within the context of the wider economic environment and confines of the public finances, and the budgetary restrictions that are placed on them.

The interests of the taxpayer are at odds with the interests of the union bosses. By meekly submitting to the demands of the unions, Labour’s flimsy negotiating skills have repeatedly been exposed.

Let’s hope that the BMA members vote to accept the offer that has been put to them, and we see the back of junior doctors strikes once and for all. I have my doubts, however.

Within 24 hours of accepting the last substantial pay award of 22.3% in 2024, Dr. Vivek Trivedi, the junior doctors’ committee co-chairman, publicly stated that the pay deal was a compromise, but that junior doctors were likely to strike again in their quest for “full pay restoration”.

We may see a temporary reprieve to the planned strikes of this month, but do not be surprised if we see them back out on picket lines again before the end of this year.