Resident doctors will be on strike for the second time this year as part of an ongoing pay and jobs dispute. The British Medical Association has announced that doctors will stage a full walk-out starting today and lasting until Wednesday 19^th November following unsuccessful negotiations with the Government.

Hospitals and GP surgeries across Cornwall will engage in the strike, but no pickets have been scheduled. This was similarly the case in July when doctors at Royal Cornwall Hospital in Treliske went on strike without picketing. The significance of the strike in Cornwall comes not just from a dispute in pay but a continued worsening of conditions for staff in both Cornwall Foundation Trust and Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust, as wards are once again placed on Black Alert for their wait-times.

Secretary of the BMA resident doctors committee Jack Fletcher has urged Wes Streeting to return to the negotiation table as they work to resolve disputes regarding eroding pay and job availability. In a statement given in October, he said of the strike action:

“This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with Government, pressing the Health Secretary to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed. We know from our own survey half of second year doctors in England are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment, and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.

“While we want to get a deal done, the Government seemingly, does not, leaving us with little option but to call for strike action.

“That is disappointing, but it is not irredeemable. Wes Streeting inherited an NHS falling apart through decades of underinvestment, but restoring our pay over several years, along with concrete plans to create more jobs and training place would go a long way towards the start of a new and better health service. We need the health secretary to step up, come forward with a proper offer on jobs, on pay. We need him to embrace change and make an NHS fit for doctors and fit for patients.”

According to the BMA, resident doctors – formerly junior doctors – have seen a real-terms pay cut of 21% since 2008. The Government has reportedly refused to discuss solutions to this problem in recent negotiations.

The industrial action is also in response to an insufficient government plan to address job shortages. A recent BMA survey of 4,401 resident doctors has revealed that 34% of respondents say they have been unable to secure substantive employment or regular locum in time for August this year. Whilst the Government has pledged to create an additional 1,000 specialty training places as part of its 10-year plan for the NHS, doctors have expressed that this is not enough.

If a settlement is not agreed amidst this current wave of industrial action, the BMA has declared it will go to ballot in January, with plans to stage walkouts in every month of 2026.

In a briefing to the NHS Provider’s Conference in Manchester earlier this week, Streeting stated that:

“It’s time for the BMA to get real. But one way or another, we’re not going to be held to ransom.

“They are increasingly behaving in cartel-like behaviour, and they threaten not just the recovery of the NHS under this government, they threaten the future of the NHS full stop, and I think that is a morally reprehensible position to be in.”

Streeting has been under fire in the press this week for supposedly plotting a leadership challenge against PM Kier Starmer, which he has denied.

Image Via: Getty.