Wes Streeting sends savage message to resident doctors over 'deeply disappointing' strikes

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has accused resident doctors in England of walking away from the negotiating table before staging five days of strikes. He offered to meet the resident doctors committee of the British Medical Association (BMA) early next week in a bid to avert further strikes.

The Cabinet Minister sent the letter on Wednesday following the end of the five day walkout.

In a letter to the co-chairs of the BMA's resident doctors committee (RDC), Mr Streeting said: "Thank you for your letter of 29 July inviting me to get back to the negotiation table, which is ironic because I never left. I am ready to continue the conversation from where you left it.

"As I made clear last week, the decision taken by your committee to proceed with strike action over the past five days was deeply disappointing and entirely unnecessary given the seemingly promising discussions we had to explore areas where we could make substantive improvements to doctors' working lives."

Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, co chairs of the BMA's RDC, said on Tuesday that they are willing to re-enter talks with the Government.

The latest strike began on Friday amid an ongoing row over pay.

NHS officials have pledged that cancelled bookings would be rescheduled within two weeks but warned of knock-on impacts for other patients.

Mr Streeting has said the union will not be allowed to "hold the country to ransom" after receiving a 28.9% pay award over the last three years, the highest across the public sector.

The BMA has said that despite this uplift, pay for resident doctors has declined by a fifth since 2008 once inflation is taken into account.

In his letter yesterday (WED), Mr Streeting said: "The consequences of your strike action have been a detrimental impact on patients, your members, your colleagues and the NHS, which might have been worse were it not for the considerable efforts of NHS leaders and frontline staff who stepped up," he wrote in a letter to the BMA.

"Your action has also been self-defeating, because you have squandered the considerable goodwill you had with me and this Government.

"I cannot in good conscience let patients, or other NHS staff, pay the price for the costs of your decision.

"I came into office hoping to reset the relationship between government and the resident doctor profession.

"I have been clear that while we cannot move on pay, this Government is prepared to negotiate on areas related to your conditions at work, career progression and tangible measures which would put money in your members' pockets."

He added: "My door remains open to the hope that we can still build the partnership with resident doctors I aspired to when I came in a year ago and, in that spirit, I am happy to meet with you early next week."

The BMA's position remains that the best way to solve this dispute is to increase pay further.

Resident doctors were awarded an average 5.4% pay rise for this financial year, following a 22% increase over the previous two years.

But the BMA says wages are still around 20% lower in real terms than in 2008 and are demanding "pay restoration".

A range of different non-pay related issues had been discussed after Mr Streeting made clear he could not shift on pay.

This included the government covering the cost of mandatory exam fees which can run to several thousand pounds during medical training as well as giving doctors more control over where they are placed during their first two years of training and more notice of rotas.

A BMA spokeswoman said: "The RDC has received the letter from Mr Streeting and is considering its response."