Hope grows resident doctors in England will cancel strike after new government offer
2025-12-11 10:37
Hospitals have hailed an improved government offer to resident doctors as a “huge move”, despite union warnings that it does nothing to address their concerns on pay.
British Medical Association leaders said although the offer was a “mixed bag” they would consult their membership on whether to call off planned strike action starting next week.
In a last-minute bid to avert the strikes, starting on Wednesday, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, pledged to double the number of extra places that early career doctors in England can apply for in order to train in their chosen area of specialism.
The union agreed to put the offer to resident – formerly junior – doctors in a survey and promised it would cancel the five-day stoppage due to start on 17 December if the majority voted in favour.
NHS England warned that it was facing a “worst-case scenario” in December with a surge of “super flu” as it released its latest hospital figures on Thursday morning. The service said an average of 2,660 patients a day were in hospital with flu last week, the highest ever for this time of year, and up 55% on the previous week.
Daniel Elkeles, the chief executive of hospitals group NHS Providers, said the response from the BMA “does give us some hope” and that there was now “a realistic potential that next week’s strikes could be called off”.
“The government have really listened … and I think what they’ve put on the table is a huge move,” Elkeles told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “This has been a dispute that has gone on for a very long time. Someone had to do something pretty significant to find a resolution and I really hope this is it.”
However, union leaders warned that the offer did not include more pay for this year or address resident doctors’ demand for a 26% salary rise over the next few years, on top of the 28.9% increase they have had since 2023.
Jack Fletcher, the chair of the BMA, said the new proposals were a “mixed bag” and lacking in detail but that the union was willing to explore them “as a potential solution”.
“We’re putting this offer neutrally and factually to members,” he told the Today programme. “There are some parts of this offer that contain things like important legislation, some way of fixing this jobs crisis, but let’s be clear, there are no more doctors at the end of this … We are still seeing a net zero in terms of an increase or decrease of doctors.
“There is nothing in this offer which goes in any way towards the significant pay erosion that we’ve had over the last 15-plus years. We’ve got a health secretary who’s pushing real-terms pay cuts on doctors in April next year.”
Fletcher said the union was nonetheless putting the offer to its members because it “reaches a threshold” for doing so and “there is important legislation in there”.
He said the union would now be carrying out an externally verified survey of doctors and that if a simple majority said the offer should be explored further and strikes called off, next week’s action would be cancelled. At that point, the offer would be put formally to BMA members.
Shivam Sharma, a deputy co-chair of the BMA, said the union was in “a dispute on both pay and jobs” and that “this offer does absolutely nothing on pay”. “I do find it difficult to see members accepting this offer,” he told Times Radio.