Half of junior doctors thinking about leaving NHS

More than half of junior doctors are making plans to leave the NHS as a result of the government’s response to industrial action, according to a new survey by the British Medical Association (BMA).

As a new three-day strike in England gets underway, the survey of junior doctors also found that 90% felt less value before the dispute started because insufficient pay offers from the government.

Two-thirds (67%) also did not think the NHS in its current form would exist in 10 years’ time. In the shorter term 88% expected the NHS to get worse over the next 18 months, emphasising the need for the government to provide a workable long-term solution to the workforce crisis involving a decent pay settlement.

Junior doctors are in despair

Dr Vivek Trivedi and Dr Robert Laurenson, co-chairs of the BMA Junior Doctors Committee, said: “Junior doctors are in despair at this government’s refusal to listen. It should never have taken two whole rounds of strike action to even put a number on the table, and for that number to be a 5% pay offer – in a year of double-digit inflation, itself another pay cut – beggars belief. We have made clear that junior doctors are looking for the full restoration of our pay, which has seen a 26% cut.

“The NHS can only function with a workforce that is properly valued, and that is impossible when doctors are being told they are worth a quarter less than they were 15 years ago. When doctors say that the government’s attitude is causing them to think about leaving the NHS, the government has to listen.”

Some 80% blamed the government for lack of progress, and a further 10% blamed the Health Secretary, Steve Barclay, personally, with nearly four in five respondents (79%) saying they did not consider him empowered to genuinely negotiate.

With confidence in the Health Secretary’s power to make the offers so desperately needed rapidly fading, the BMA has written to the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, urging him to intervene to resolve the dispute.

Professor Philip Banfield, BMA chair of council, said in the letter: “No doctor wants to strike. They have been forced to do so to try and get your government to listen and understand the realities of how desperate things have become on the frontline of the NHS… I urge you to listen to our doctors and to meet with me and our Junior Doctors Committee as soon as possible to find a way forward in this dispute”.