Health Secretary Wes Streeting has 'six weeks with no strike action' to bridge the gap in his bitter dispute with BMA strike leader Dr Jack Fletcher, as he heads back to the negotiating table
11:32, 06 Jan 2026Updated 12:58, 06 Jan 2026
Wes Streeting will restart talks with doctors this week to avoid more NHS strikes.
The Health Secretary will go back to the negotiating table in an increasingly bitter dispute with representatives of the British Medical Association which took resident doctors out on a five-day strike just before Christmas. The union is demanding better pay and more training positions for young doctors to eradicate bottlenecks which leave some unable to get a job in the NHS.
Mr Streeting said: "My message to resident doctors is that it's clearly not in their interests, or the Government's interests, or patients interests or in the interests of other staff for us to set the NHS back with ongoing industrial action.
"By my reckoning, we've got at least six weeks where there will be no strike action, the BMA don't have a live strike mandate, they are balloting for one as we speak.
"I'm not going to make the mistake of my predecessors of closing the door to the BMA because they've been on strike. We will continue to talk to try and find resolution.”
Resident doctors are those up to the level of consultant and their representatives at the BMA have become embroiled in an increasingly bitter war of words with Mr Streeting. The Secretary of State said he and his team will meet with the chair of the BMA’s Resident Doctors Committee this week.
The BMA is calling for a commitment to increase pay by 26% over the next few years. The union points to pay erosion since 2008 saying real terms salaries are down a fifth since then, according to the Retail Price Index measure of inflation.
The Government’s preferred measure of inflation is the Consumer Price Index - which excludes mortgage and permanent housing costs - shows average resident doctor salaries down 5% since 2008.
But pay has been increasing for resident doctors in recent years, particularly since Labour came to power. The dispute is over the 5.4% pay increase they were awarded for 2025/26.
A last ditch offer from Mr Streeting creating more NHS training roles for doctors was rejected in a ballot of doctors before Christmas. The result suggested members had been put off by Mr Streeting’s hostile rhetoric towards the BMA leadership.
Wes Streeting had accused the doctors’ union of wanting “other people” to pay for their higher salaries, saying he was “frustrated to the point of actual fury”.
Dr Jack Fletcher, chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee, then accused Mr Streeting of exaggerating the extent of the current flu surge and the risk it poses to hospitals.
He told the Mirror: "Yes [the flu] came early but it's nowhere near as sort of bad as the health secretary is making it out. We see flu peak every year. That's normal. We see normal sort of winter pressures.
“There have been rounds of industrial action through the winter before. However, there's not more cases of flu compared to previous years. It's just that the flu season’s come early.”
Speaking to Times Radio on Monday morning, Mr Streeting said: "I think we're in a good place on jobs, and we're not far apart there at all, but candidly, we're further apart on pay, and we've got to bridge the gap between the BMA expectations and what the Government can afford, and I can only go as far as we can afford, no further."
Mr Streeting’s announcement comes days after the NHS in England announced that 95% of pre-planned care went ahead during the last round of strike action. The five-day walkout took place from December 17 amid warnings that the NHS was dealing with an early spike in flu cases and other winter viruses.
Mr Streeting added: "Every time we see resident doctors on strike, that's costing us about a quarter of a billion pounds. Secondly, it comes at a cost of consultant time and energy. Now here we are in the peak [of winter pressures] - we're not out of the woods yet, there are real challenges in the NHS this week.
"I'm proud of how the team has responded in recent weeks, but strikes are making our job harder, not easier, and not just harder in relations this winter, harder in terms of the recovery of the NHS overall."
Speaking on Tuesday, Dr Jack Fletcher said: "It is good to see Mr Streeting say he wants to get round the table. It is vital this dispute is resolved for the good of doctors and patients.
"We need to see Government propose a proper fix to the jobs crisis and a credible path towards restoring the lost value of the profession. That must mean the creation of genuinely new jobs, and an end to the proposal of real terms pay cuts in three months' time.
"Both December's and November’s strikes could have been avoided if these valid solutions had been on the table in time. This year we hope Government learns from its mistakes. 2026 does not need to see thousands of doctors go on strike yet again.
"Let’s hope there is no more Government scaremongering and they come to the table willing to work collaboratively."