Receive free updates on UK industrial disputes
we will send you myFT Daily Digest Email summary of latest news British labor disputes There is news every morning.
Senior NHS doctors have said further strike action will be postponed if ministers agree to hold pay talks mediated by mediation body Acas, offering a glimmer of hope for a resolution to one of the UK’s most intractable pay disputes in the public sector.
But an ally of Health Secretary Steve Barclay said the government had handed out pay following the advice of the independent pay review body and “we will not reopen”.
Consultants and junior doctors, represented by the British Medical Association, are staging a series of three-day strikes this week to coincide with the Conservative Party’s annual conference, leaving hospitals with staffing levels reduced to Christmas Day levels. Medical staff are planning a mass rally outside the Manchester Convention Center on Tuesday.
With more than a million appointments and surgeries canceled since December due to the NHS strike, Barclays publicly attacked senior doctors for choosing to take action, accusing them of denying vital cancer treatments in an interview with the Financial Times last week. This is despite their income putting them “in the top 2% of public sector pay”.
There have been no direct negotiations between Barclays and the British Medical Association, the doctors’ union, for more than six months, with government rules that negotiations will only take place if the strike is called off.
The BMA said on Tuesday that with no further action planned, its advisory board had written to the Prime Minister offering to have Acas assist with negotiations if necessary. It added that it had also written to the mediation service to formally request its involvement.
In a letter to Barclays, it said it would delay the launch of any further strikes for four weeks to allow time for negotiations, but if “we are unable to deliver a credible deal to our members by 3 November” , it will resume action.
Vishal Sharma, chairman of the BMA’s advisory board, said: “If they fail to negotiate, we are not going anywhere.”
The Department of Health and Social Care said it had repeatedly urged the BMA to put patients first and “end its devastating strike immediately”.
“In line with the recommendations of the Independent Salary Review Body, we are offering doctors fair and reasonable pay rises, with doctors in training receiving an average pay rise of approximately 8.8% – which is higher than most public and private sector pay rises – and consultants receiving pay rises is 6%,” the department added.
Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents health organizations across England, described the offer as an “olive branch” that could be the first step in ending the disruption caused by the strike.
“Something has to give. We cannot go into another ‘full’ winter as the NHS faces the threat of more strikes. He added that strike action made it “almost impossible for the NHS to reduce its growing waiting lists”.
However, the BMA made no mention of any proposals to negotiate with ministers over junior doctors’ pay – despite similar proposals for mediation by Acas being made earlier this year.
The NHS Confederation, which represents health organizations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, said the BMA’s arbitration offer was a “positive step” but leaders “want strike action against consultants and junior doctors to be suspended while Acas intervenes”. Mediation of negotiations”.
Matthew Taylor, the federation’s chief executive, said both sides in the dispute should resume talks with the public “in the hope that they can reach a compromise before winter arrives”.
He added that if that did not happen, “there would need to be an honest look at the extent to which the Prime Minister’s key commitment to reduce waiting list sizes by March 2024 is being met”.
Svlook
