Doctors’ strike timed to cause havoc over Easter break, says NHS England chief

Hospitals have struggled to find enough doctors to replace those who have refused to work during the six-day walkout, Sir Jim Mackey, the chief executive of NHS England, said.

Many thousands of resident doctors belonging to the British Medical Association were on strike on Wednesday, the second day of a six-day walkout – that is the longest yet in their long-running dispute with the government over pay and jobs. It is the union’s 15th strike since March 2023.

In a letter to NHS bosses on Monday night, Mackey said that the doctors’ stoppage risked setting back the health service’s recent progress at improving waiting times for care and the public’s satisfaction with it.

“In that context it’s really disappointing that the BMA resident doctors committee has gone ahead with further industrial action,” Mackey said. “I know today has been tough for staff picking up the strain across the country – and how disruptive and challenging it’s been for many hospitals to manage it and fill their rotas after the Easter weekend.

“We cannot forget this action has been deliberately timed to cause havoc.”

Mackey was referring to the fact that, with so many staff off on away because of the Easter holidays, hospitals have found it hard to ensure that as many personnel are on duty during this strike as during previous walkouts. Most schools in England remain closed for the Easter holidays.

Despite that hospitals have done a good job at continuing to provide as much planned care as possible and “keep the show on the road”, he added. NHS England tries to ensure that at least 95% of such care still goes ahead during the strikes.

“There’s a long way to go but it looks like we’re in as good a place as we could hope on day one.

“I am so grateful to everyone for all you’ve done ahead of today, during today and what you will be doing over the next five-plus days to contend with these pressures, maintain services and help keep the show on the road for our patients”, Mackey added.

The BMA’s resident doctors committee called the strike on 25 March in response to what it claimed was the government suddenly changing the terms of a potential deal to end the dispute. It said its members deserved a 26% pay rise over the next few years to ensure they obtain “full pay restoration” to make up for the erosion in the real-terms value of their salaries since 2008-09.

It accused the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) of reneging on a previously agreed plan to hand doctors significant pay rises through extra “progression pay”, linked to them moving more quickly through their pay bands. The resident doctors committee walked away from talks with the DHSC when it made clear that resident doctors would receive the money – understood to be £700m – over the next three years, and not sooner, as it had wanted and, it said, expected.

Announcing the strike on 25 March, Dr Jack Fletcher, the chair of the union’s resident doctors committee, said that peace talks had been “making good progress right up until the point, in the last two weeks, when the government began to shift the goalposts”.