UK doctors begin five-day strike despite PM’s plea

Resident doctors on strike holding placards outside St Thomas’ Hospital in London, on July 25, 2025. (Photograph: EPA)
Thousands of junior doctors across the UK launched a five-day strike on Friday after last-minute talks with the Labour government failed to produce a new pay deal.

Picket lines formed outside hospitals nationwide as doctors protested what they describe as more than a decade of “pay erosion,” despite accepting a 22.3% pay rise over two years last September, shortly after Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party came to power.

The striking doctors — all below consultant level — say their real-terms pay has declined by over 21% since 2008.
“We’re not working 21 percent less hard, so why should our pay suffer?” said Melissa Ryan and Ross Nieuwoudt, co-chairs of the British Medical Association’s (BMA) Junior Doctors Committee.

Starmer, writing in The Times, appealed to doctors to call off the action, warning that the strike would “cause real damage” to the National Health Service (NHS) and put patients at risk.
“Lives will be blighted by this decision,” he said, urging doctors not to follow the BMA “down this damaging road.”

Health Secretary Wes Streeting echoed the plea in The Telegraph, stressing that the government cannot afford further pay increases this year.

The strike follows a wave of industrial action last year by public sector workers — including doctors, teachers, and train drivers — amid soaring inflation and demands for improved pay and conditions. The Labour government has since reached settlements with several sectors, including a three-year, 15% pay deal for train drivers.

However, the standoff with junior doctors remains unresolved, raising fears of further disruption to an already strained NHS.

AFP