The British Medical Association said NHS consultants strike November England will begin at 6.59am on 25 November and run for two days unless talks with the government stop it. Only emergency cover is planned during the action.
Dr Helen Neary, a BMA consultants committee co-chair, said: “The government has four weeks to avoid any action taking place.” The BMA said more than three-quarters of consultants who took part in its ballot backed strike action.
Dr Helen Neary and Dr Shanu Datta
Dr Helen Neary and Dr Shanu Datta said consultants are central to running and designing services, training and supervising the future workforce, and ensuring patients get the best treatment possible. Neary said: “As the most senior and skilled doctors in the NHS, consultants not only provide frontline, life-saving care, but they are central to running and designing services, training and supervising the future workforce, and ensuring patients get the best treatment possible.”
They said the government is ignoring concerns about consultants’ wellbeing and workload. Neary also said: “Solving the pressures facing the health service will be impossible without valuing and retaining these doctors.”
Yvette Cooper and talks
The BMA said the strike could be avoided if Yvette Cooper committed to formal negotiations on pay and working conditions. It said consultants have been in dispute with the government since last year and last went on strike in 2023.
The dispute sits alongside a 3.5% pay increase given to doctors this year. Neary said consultants’ pay is still a quarter down in real terms on what it was 17 years ago, and added: “And as the much-lauded progress on waiting lists in England stalls, the government is also telling consultants they deserve another pay cut.”
The immediate question is whether formal negotiations begin within the four-week window the BMA set. If they do not, the two-day stoppage will go ahead with emergency cover only, leaving consultants in England on course for their first strike since 2023.
