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| Volume 55 Number 33, December 20, 2025 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
Mass resident doctors' picket at the Newcastle RVI,
November 14, 2025 - Photo:Workers' Weekly
On Wednesday, December 17, at 7 a.m., resident doctors in England began their five-day strike action to continue to fight against the unsafe shortage of resident doctors in our hospitals and their collapsing pay level. They continue to say to the government that Enough Is Enough!
In a press statement [1] the BMA said: "At the weekend, tens of thousands of frontline doctors came together to vote to tell the Government their offer was insufficient to call off these strikes. The Government should now know in very clear terms how badly they have handled this situation. Those tens of thousands of doctors will again go out on strike today, making clear that they are willing to stand up for their profession against a totally avoidable jobs crisis. With some facing unemployment and others leaving the country entirely, they are more aware than anyone that short-term thinking won't cut it.
"It is well past the time for ministers to come up with a genuinely long-term plan. If they can simply provide a clear route to responsibly raise pay over a number of years, and enough genuinely new jobs instead of recycled ones, then there need not be any more strikes for the remainder of this Government.
"These strikes are the consequence of hurried, last-minute offers. This way of working is in no one's interest. If we can sit down to come up with a considered, collaborative roadmap towards the restoration of the NHS workforce, then everyone can come out ahead. If the Government keeps up the pattern of denial, harsh words and rushed half-measures, then we are going to be stuck in the cycle of strikes well into the New Year.
"We have just had a year of denial from the Government. But the New Year can be far better if we just set our sights on a lasting deal."
Again Wes Streeting, the
Health Secretary, levelled insults at the resident doctors saying that the
decision of the resident doctors to continue their strikes was
"self-indulgent" and "dangerous". He tried to lay the blame
on the doctors, complaining that "these strikes will come at a cost of
£250m and impact on operational pressures, on patients and on the whole
NHS workforce and I deeply regret we are in this situation". As if he
cared about the situation that he and successive governments have created!
In other words, there is no acknowledgment or alarm at the context, that why is it in the modern age doctors are forced to go on strike to defend their jobs and their pay when the NHS needs them more and more? There is no acknowledgment of the deep crisis that the government and previous governments have created in the NHS. It is the government and the cartel party system in power that is responsible. It is they that have underfunded the health care system by "self-indulgent" and "dangerous" measures NOT the doctors. It is successive governments who have refused to invest in the NHS as a vital public health care system. They are responsible for diverting the existing already reduced funds to privatise profitable services and Private Finance Initiatives and at huge costs to patient care.
Not only that, but it is a fact that the whole economy is diverted away from public services to war preparations and funding the priorities of the big corporations that those at the head of government directly serve. It is this and not the doctors' "self-indulgence" that has left so many patients to face death and harm waiting for timely treatment in a compromised healthcare system.
As the doctors take their action, they are supported with more and more people who see the frustration of the doctors and their new resolve that Enough Is Enough! They are strongly pointing out that more than a decade of real-terms pay erosion for doctors, worsening conditions and increasing shortage of doctors in our hospitals is applicable, not only to doctors, but to nurses and the whole health team, and that it is unacceptable in a modern society.
The fight against the running down of the work force in our NHS, their jobs, pay and conditions must get the full support of the working class and people. The NHS human-centred workforce is a workforce which is vital to treat the most immediate and urgent needs, as well as dealing with all of the complex human health needs. In a modern society, health care is a right for all with access for patients to the right care and at the right time. [2]
Notes
[1] Resident doctors in England begin new round of strike action
https://www.bma.org.uk/bma-media-centre/resident-doctors-in-england-begin-new-round-of-strike-action
[2] See also:
Workers' Weekly: Resident doctors to strike: The Fight for Jobs and Pay
to Provide the Care that People Need
https://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wwie-25/ww25-27/ww25-27.htm
Workers' Weekly: Stand with the resident doctors and their strike:
Doctors Continue their Fight for Jobs and Pay to Provide the Care that People
Need
https://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wwie-25/ww25-32/ww25-32-01.htm