On the first day of their two day strike on 20 and 21 July, consultants in England put the blame for the crisis in the profession and the NHS squarely at the door of the government.
The failure of senior doctors’ pay to keep pace with that of other professions, and the government’s refusal to engage with resolving the crisis, left the profession “angry and at rock bottom,” said Vishal Sharma, chair of the BMA’s Consultants Committee. He said that the health and social care secretary, Steve Barclay, had only once met consultants to discuss pay, in February, and that requests for negotiations had been ignored.
Sharma told a rally at BMA House on 20 July, “When we say strike action is a last resort, we really mean it is a last resort. We have tried everything to get them to listen. We have demonstrated that our pay has fallen not only against inflation but against all our comparator groups. For 15 years we have pleaded for the government to listen, but they have ignored us and inflicted pay cut after pay cut after pay cut.”
The BMA has said that consultants’ take home pay had fallen by 35% since 2008-09. On 13 July the prime minister made a “final offer” of a 6% increase in doctors’ pay …