Wes Streeting spend much of yesterday afternoon reaching out to resident doctors.
However, resident doctors will strike today as planned.
Wes Streeting posted the following letter to X yesterday:
Wes Streeting's letter to resident doctors
Department of Health & Social Care
From the Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
39 Victoria Street London SW1H 0EU
Dear resident doctors,
24 July 2025
Ahead of the planned strike action starting this week, I wanted to write to you personally about the situation we find ourselves in.
This government came into office, just over a year ago, with a great deal of sympathy for the arguments that resident doctors were making about pay, working conditions and career progression. I was determined to build a genuine partnership with the BMA Junior Doctors Committee (JDC) - now Resident Doctors Committee (RDC) - to make real improvements on all three fronts.
We have made progress together. While some of my critics in Parliament and the media believe I was naïve to agree such a generous pay deal to end the strikes last year, I stand by that choice. I worked intensively with Rob Laurenson and Vivek Trivedi to agree that deal because I believed it to be fair.
Earlier this year, I built on that deal by delivering the highest pay award of the entire public sector for resident doctors. Taken together, the choices this government made delivered an average 28.9% pay award for resident doctors.
My intention was to end the junior doctors strike with a new partnership with resident doctors. During the past year, when we hit some bumps in the road on delivering changes to exception reporting, I met with BMA reps at short notice to help solve problems and get us back on track. The work on rotation reforms is underway and I'm determined to see it through.
Strike action should always be a last resort - not the action you take immediately following a 28.9% pay award from a government that is committed to working with you to further improve your lives at work.
While I've been honest with the BMA RDC that we cannot afford to go further on pay this year, I was prepared to negotiate on areas related to your conditions at work and career progression, including measures that would put money back in the pockets of resident doctors. This would have continued our work to date, recognising that there is still an awful lot more to do.
Based on discussions with the BMA RDC leaders between 8th and 19th July, I set out three substantive areas where I believed we could work together to make real improvements:
1. Your training pathway is arduous, with an extensive process of examinations, and other professional and educational requirements. I made it clear that I was prepared to agree actions to reduce the costs you face as a result of training.
2. The cost of equipment, food and drink are just some examples where the NHS and your employers do not provide adequate support, including where additional costs are borne by you.
3. Your progression through the training pathway is the best pay rise, and I was prepared to explore how many further training posts could be created - additional to the 1,000 already announced - as early as possible.
I made clear to the BMA RDC leadership that I was ready to work at pace (as I did last summer). All I asked of them was the postponement of strikes for a few weeks so we could work together on a detailed package that could form an offer to you to end this dispute.
Following what I had thought to be constructive discussions conducted in good faith with the BMA RDC co-chairs and deputy co-chairs throughout the last week, I wrote on Monday evening setting out a way forward to avert strike action. I am under no illusion that much more work would have been needed but, to be clear, the content of the letter to the BMA RDC leadership was discussed with them in draft form and I had responded to their requests for where additional information was required. I no longer believe that they have engaged with me in good faith.
The tragedy of our current situation is that the BMA RDC has chosen the path that will lead to the government and the NHS paying the price for strikes, rather than making faster improvements to your working lives.
NHS England has updated its 'Frequently Asked Questions' on the impact of industrial action on education, training and redeployment, which can be found here. I encourage you to speak to your local clinical leaders if you have questions.
I deeply regret the position we now find ourselves in. The public, and I am sure many of you, do not understand the rush to strike action. I would like to thank all those that will be turning up to work and supporting their colleagues in providing care for patients despite the challenging circumstances. I urge you to join them. We can achieve more for both doctors and patients by working together.
Yours sincerely,
RT HON WES STREETING MP
https://twitter.com/wesstreeting/status/1948392911332048985
