Doctors 'hold patients to ransom' as they threaten to quit NHS if they don't get pay rise

Doctors "holding patients to ransom" have threatened to quit the NHS and work abroad unless they get inflation-busted pay rises. The ultimatum comes as hospital medics prepare to turn their backs on the sick and needy and strike from Friday.

The five-day walkout in demand of a 29% hike will be the 12th round of industrial action since 2023 and threatens to bring the health service to its knees.

Professor Karol Sikora, a former NHS consultant and world-renowned oncologist, said: "It's small wonder long-suffering patients feel betrayed. They're being held to ransom. Doctors should stop striking and start treating patients."

The mass walkout could see more than 200,000 hospital appointments scrubbed despite doctors being handed bumper pay rises.

Resident doctors agreed a 22.3% pay rise last year - and have been awarded 5.4% on average this year - but they want this increased to 29% to return them to "real terms" pay levels seen in 2008.

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting has told medics of public anger at how "after a 28.9 per cent pay rise you would still walk out on strike".

But in an unequivocal warning Dr Tom Dolphin, the British Medical Association's new chair, said: "I've seen too many colleagues leave - for Canada, Ireland and elsewhere - where they can almost double their salary for the same job. When you combine this with gruelling and disruptive training, the threat of unemployment, and the fact that their assistants are paid more, can you blame resident doctors for voting with their feet?"

Dr Dolphin, 47, a consultant anaesthetist at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, said: "The truth is that care is already disrupted every day. Operations are cancelled across the country due to lack of beds and lack of staff. This will only continue unless we start valuing doctors properly - and like they are elsewhere.

"Doctors are taking a stand now to make sure that we can recruit and keep excellent doctors for our health service. We are struggling to staff our rotas now; we cannot let things get worse, for the sake of patients and the NHS we know and love."

During their first foundation year after finishing their medical degree resident doctors in England earn a basic salary of £38,831 for an average 48 -hour working week. In the second year this increases to £44,439.

After eight years as a resident doctor - highly-skilled medics who provide direct patient care while learning advanced skills for a chosen specialty - salaries of £75,000, more than twice the UK average UK, are common.

Some 1.5 million appointments were axed or rescheduled across 44 days of strikes in 2023 and 2024 as NHS care was torpedoed and public support fell through the floor.

Friday's walkout, which starts at 7am and runs until 7am on July 30, comes as just one in five now says they are satisfied with the NHS. According to the British Social Attitudes survey six in 10 are very or quite dissatisfied with the NHS.

Some 55 per cent of eligible doctors took part in the strike vote with 26,766 of 53,766 in favour of action for up to six months, meaning operations and appointments could be disrupted until Christmas with the elderly most likely to be impacted by a rolling programme of industrial action.

Rachel Power, Chief Executive of the Patients Association, said: "Patients will face delays to treatment, increasing uncertainty, and in some cases, a decline in their health during the planned strike action.

"Routine operations and vital appointments will inevitably be cancelled or delayed, and pressure on an already stretched NHS will only increase. The emotional and physical effects on patients will be significant and regrettable.

"With the latest British Social Attitude survey showing patient satisfaction in NHS services is at an all-time low, we urge both sides to find a way forward without further disruption."

Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK said: "We know that older people are often hugely grateful to NHS staff and broadly sympathetic of the need for their terms and conditions to reflect the crucial roles they play. "However, with long waiting times for surgery and diagnostics finally starting to fall, it would be very sad if this recent progress was interrupted by industrial action on the part of resident doctors or any other professional group. "About one in three of all the people on NHS waiting lists are aged over 65, many of whom are experiencing pain and difficulty living their normal lives, pending an operation or procedure of some kind.

"For their sake we hope that all industrial disputes between NHS staff and the Government can be settled swiftly and amicably, without any professional group feeling the need to exercise their right to withdraw their labour, disrupting the public as a result."

In 2023 Professor Philip Banfield, Dr Dolphin's predecessor as BMA chair, used the Express to apologise to long-suffering patients and their families for the chaos and disorder caused by walkouts.

He said: "I am truly sorry for the impact the strikes have on patients and staff working in the NHS.

"I've worked in the NHS for 40 years and a lot of things have changed for the better - tests, treatments and surgical techniques have advanced significantly. Back then, it was an exciting and attractive place to start your career. But the (current) situation is dire - the future of the NHS has never looked more uncertain."

The Government is set to hold eleventh hour talks with the BMA in a last-ditch attempt to avert strike action but said it will not yield to its unreasonable pay demands.

Mr Streeting said: "While we cannot move on pay after a 28.9% pay rise, we are working on areas where we can improve working lives for resident doctors. Strikes have a serious cost for patients, so I am appealing to the BMA to call them off and instead work together to improve their members' working conditions and continue rebuilding the NHS."

If there's one thing the Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Express readers and I can all agree on, it's that we all love the NHS, and want to protect it for the future.

I have been working in the NHS for 22 years, but the NHS has also been there for me and my family throughout my life, just as it has been for you - like when my nieces and nephews were born, or when I had surgery to fix my knee after a sports injury. As a fellow anaesthetist delivered the drugs to send me to sleep that day, I knew that I was in the best hands in a health service that is still - despite its many faults - often the envy of the world.

We all want to ensure that the NHS can continue providing cradle-to-grave care, free at the point of use for everyone, for years to come. But we cannot forget that its greatest asset is its staff.

The NHS is in my blood. My father is a paramedic, and every summer from when I was about five years old, I would join him at an arts festival where he worked in the field hospital for festival-goers, caring for people who became unwell or injured. No doubt being there every summer right up to university led to my commitment to being a doctor. I'm now 47, and a consultant anaesthetist at a major trauma centre in London, dealing with the most critical cases; that commitment to my patients has not waned.

It's been a decade since I was last a resident doctor - then known as junior doctors. Things were tough then, after five years of medical school and then another 12 years' training, but things have got far worse since. Resident doctors' pay has fallen, and those leaving medical school now graduate with student debt of up to £100,000 - and they are not working less hard for their money.

During the Covid pandemic, I was working side-by-side with resident doctors in an improvised intensive care unit we had to set up in our operating theatres because the main ICU had run out of space. Many resident doctors and others were shifted from their usual specialty to work in intensive care under extremely difficult conditions. The nation clapped for their bravery and dedication, but that didn't stop their pay falling.

Resident doctors are not asking for a pay rise. Like all doctors, they've had their pay cut and they're asking for this to be reversed. Yes, they received an award last year that went some way towards this, but we always said that was just the start. The Health Secretary himself agreed, saying pay restoration is 'a journey and not an event'. Unfortunately, this year, this journey seemed to hit a roadblock.

Like you, we don't want strikes to happen. And we're currently in talks with the Government to try to stop them - the pressure is on the Health Secretary to fix the dispute. Patients will be naturally anxious about whether strikes will make it harder to get healthcare. I want to reassure you that at the BMA we are committed to patient safety. That's why, like in previous strikes, senior doctors will provide cover for emergencies and the most urgent care (something I have done myself during previous strikes). And there is a proven system where hospitals can call striking doctors back in for unforeseen major safety events.

The truth is that care is already disrupted every day. Operations are cancelled across the country due to lack of beds and lack of staff. This will only continue unless we start valuing doctors properly - and like they are elsewhere.

I've seen too many colleagues leave - for Canada, Ireland and elsewhere - where they can almost double their salary for the same job. This isn't unique to my hospital: nationwide 10,000 doctors last year applied for certificates that allow them to work abroad.

When you combine this with gruelling and disruptive training, the threat of unemployment, and the fact that their assistants are paid more, can you blame resident doctors for voting with their feet?

Doctors are taking a stand now to make sure that we can recruit and keep excellent doctors for our health service. We are struggling to staff our rotas now; we cannot let things get worse, for the sake of patients and the NHS we know and love.

Dr Tom Dolphin is a consultant anaesthetist and BMA Chair of Council