No issues ever seem to be resolved

Adam James Pollock has a topical Critic piece on the recent round of industrial action by doctors and what it tells us about the many failures of political oversight when faced with powerful bodies such as the BMA.


Why are doctors special?

Doctors have a lot less to complain about than other workers

Britain these days is a crucible of permacrises. No issues ever seem to be resolved; the goalposts for complaints are being constantly moved. One such problem which has reared its ugly head, despite previous assurances that the issue was finished, is that of pay strikes by junior doctors.

They are back. This is the fifteenth round of industrial action by doctors since March 2023. The problem is becoming so severe that the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, is considering taking a page from the playbook of that classic Labour heroine, Margaret Thatcher, and banning strikes.

The Government’s last offer, which the British Medical Association (BMA) rejected as being wholly inadequate, would have left the average resident doctor 35.2 per cent better off than they were four years ago, according to Streeting. Their pay has already risen by over 30 per cent since 2023, with the majority of this coming under the Labour Government. I would wager that this is a significantly larger pay rise than you, dear reader, or I have experienced in the same period. Why, then, are medics so implacably unhappy?


A familiar issue but the whole piece is worth reading as a reminder that union leverage still matters in certain areas of the public sector. 

The doctors should be paid more. So should the warehouse workers, the small business owners, the weary 30-year-olds who are considering opting out of their pensions in order to add an extra £75 a month into their Lifetime ISAs in the hopes of buying a house. The difference is that none of these people are in a position to shut down an NHS trust for the best part of a week and generate a month of consistent media coverage in order to be given yet more money from the taxpayer.

The question of whether resident doctors are sufficiently compensated is a legitimate one. It is, however, a great deal less urgent than the question of why no other workers seem to matter.