The NHS “doesn’t just belong” to placing junior docs and cannot be “switched on and off on whim”, the well being secretary mentioned.
Victoria Atkins turned up the warmth within the authorities’s row with the British Medical Association (BMA) as their record-breaking walk-out continues.
Junior docs in England are in the midst of a six-day strike over pay and circumstances, the longest industrial motion in NHS historical past.
Numerous hospitals in England have pleaded for medics to go away picket strains and get again to work attributable to security considerations, also called derogation requests.
But this has sparked a row because the BMA has recommended the requests are “politically motivated”.
Ms Atkins promised to start out talks with the BMA “in 20 minutes” if the strikes have been referred to as off.
Speaking on a go to to London Ambulance Service, she informed the PA information company: “I’ve said throughout this that, please, to the junior doctors’ committee, the moment you call off the strikes, I’ll get back around the table with you within 20 minutes.”
She mentioned the strikes must be referred to as off for negotiations to occur, “because the NHS belongs to us all”.
“It doesn’t just belong to the junior doctors’ committee, and for the 1.3 million people who work in the NHS, as well of course for the tens of millions of people it looks after, the NHS cannot be switched on and off on whim.”
However, the BMA hit again calling it a “political choice” for Downing Street to “stick rigidly to its dogma of not negotiating while strikes are planned”.
Professor Philip Banfield, BMA council chairman, mentioned: “In the past, the government waived this principle for the barrister strikes, so there is no reason for them to waste time and money by refusing to talk now.
“We are clear: we’re prepared to speak 24/7. Get again across the desk, give us a reputable supply and we will finish these strikes proper now.”
The government gave junior doctors an 8.8% pay rise last summer, with an extra 3% offered during the last round of negotiations towards the end of the year.
But the BMA rejected the three% supply, saying it doesn’t make up for a real-term pay reduce of practically 1 / 4 for junior docs since 2008.
They need full pay “restoration” to reverse real-term cuts in pay since 2008-9, a brand new pay mechanism to stop any future pay decreases in opposition to inflation and the price of dwelling, and a reformed pay assessment physique to “safeguard recruitment and retention of junior doctors”.
The strikes are a headache for Rishi Sunak because the UK enters an election yr.
The prime minister has staked his premiership on 5 key pledges which embody reducing NHS ready lists.
Although the backlog was at a file excessive earlier than the economic motion broke out, over a million appointments have been cancelled or rescheduled attributable to strike motion by junior docs and different employees within the NHS prior to now yr.
Read More:
Junior docs begin their longest strike in NHS historical past – this is what they need
While the federal government has managed to resolve different disputes, with a new pay supply just lately made to senior docs, the row with junior medics is displaying no indicators of abating.
More than 20 derogation requests have been submitted to the BMA for this spherical of strikes, however to this point none have been authorised.
The union mentioned that NHS England and a few trusts are refusing to offer proof that they’ve undertaken steps to point out they’ve “exhausted” all different sources of staffing earlier than recalling medics from the picket line.
In a letter to NHS bosses, the BMA accused well being leaders of misusing the system and bowing to political strain to undermine the strike.
NHS England mentioned they’ll “continue to engage with the BMA in good faith” and they’re going to handle the method for contemplating affected person security mitigations.
Ms Atkins, echoing Mr Sunak’s feedback earlier on Thursday, mentioned she backed NHS leaders in making the mitigation requests however that is being achieved “completely independent of government”.
She mentioned the strikes are having “very serious consequences”, with 88,000 appointments cancelled over the last set in December.
Health officers have warned that this strike will likely be worse as a result of it coincides with one of many busiest weeks of the calendar yr, attributable to a rising tide of winter bugs and other people storing up issues over the Christmas break.
On the primary day of the strike on Tuesday, vital incidents have been declared at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth and by the NHS in Nottingham.
Meanwhile greater than a dozen hospitals mentioned that emergency companies have been busy, with some reporting “extreme heightened pressure”.
Source: information.sky.com”