Doctors' strikes: have the public run out of patience?

Just five years on from "Clap for Carers", public support for resident doctors and their upcoming strikes is dwindling.

A YouGov poll published this week showed that public support for the strike "has dropped five points" since May, with 52% of the 4,954 adults surveyed opposed to the strikes, and 34% in favour.

The British Medical Association has confirmed that industrial action will begin on Friday over demands for a 29% pay rise. Discussions with the government appear to have completely broken down, with reported "fury inside the Department of Health and Social Care" over the BMA's decision not to postpone the strike for further talks, said The Guardian.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, have demanded the pay increase because, they say, their salaries have been "eroded by inflation".

What did the commentators say?

Last year's doctors' strike had widespread public backing "despite the 1.3 million healthcare appointments lost", said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. There was a "strong sense" that "this was about defending the state of the service". Now, with the NHS still "under intense strain" and in a world "where growth and pay have long stagnated", people may struggle to feel the same way.

We are seeing the NHS under threat after "finally getting back on its feet", said Kevin Maguire in The Mirror. Most of us agree that "hard-working, skilled and stressed life-savers are worth even more" than they're being paid, but further industrial action could end up "squandering bedside trust", as well as "respect".

In media appearances, the BMA has been "insufferable" and "self-righteous" over this, said consultant physician Druin Burch in The Spectator. Most resident doctors are "excellent" and hardly ever convey "the self-satisfaction seen in recent media calls for more money".

Most of them are young and struggling with economic squeezes but this has "little to do with the wages of junior or even senior doctors" and more to do with a "twisted housing market". Like many young people, they are "not slow to feel the world is treating them unfairly" but I see "no widespread conviction about these strikes".

Most people do not realise "how long it takes to become a specialist in the UK", said former NHS resident doctor Benyamin Deldar in the Financial Times. It can "easily" be "13 to 14 years post-graduation before you can work independently as a consultant" and earn more decent money.

What next?

A favourable outcome for the public would be "no strikes followed by an agreed independent review to improve earnings long-term", said The Mirror's Maguire. "Wages, jobs and lives are in the balance."

A solution like "pay rises for the first year or two", when resident doctor wages are at their lowest, could be affordable, said The Spectator's Burch, but "no serious government could accept a huge precedent-setting pay rise".