I’m a doctor – here’s how I feel about the strikes

Pay is only one part of the story behind the doctors' strikes, writes Holly Tarn. We have been calling for integrated social care, preventative medicine and better public health planning for years, and it’s time for Wes Streeting to implement them

At the dawn of the first of five strike days on Friday, junior doctors stood at the picket lines in bright orange coats – flames of protest flickering against a dispute grown cold.

One placard captured the sentiment: “Why is my assistant paid more than me? Doctors £38k, physician assistants £45k – make it make sense.” The message is clear: current conditions are no longer sustainable.

But beneath the buzz of the picket lines lies an uncomfortable truth: not all doctors, perhaps not even most, align with the British Medical Association on the strikes.

A recent Savanta survey, published in The Times, found that 49 per cent of junior doctors think the strikes should be called off while only 33 per cent believe they should go ahead. In the spirit of feeling torn, I stand with the 19 per cent who aren’t sure. (It’s worth noting that the survey included just 200 respondents, a sample size the British Medical Association has criticised as too small to be reliable).

The survey doesn’t outline the reasons for a changing tide, but let me speculate. For many of us (myself included, as a newly qualified junior doctor) pay isn’t the root of the problem.

Like a consultant tracing symptoms back to their root cause, we need to step back and ask what truly lies behind the unrest. And though this might not fit neatly with what the British Medical Association wants to say, I don’t think it should focus on pay.

What’s more important is the familiar story of feeling undervalued and disposable, coupled with a deep frustration at working within a system that is failing not only us, but our patients. At its heart, we want to save the NHS.

Most readers will know exactly what I’m talking about. “Corridor care” has become the norm in our emergency departments. It can take weeks to book a routine GP appointment, and that’s if you manage to be on the phone at 7.59 am sharp and get through to a receptionist who thinks kindly enough of you. Hospital wards often feel like they’re running on a skeleton crew. We are understaffed. We are under-resourced.

A recent survey by the Royal College of Physicians found that 83 per cent of consultants are worried that rota gaps for senior doctors are harming patient care. And when those senior doctors are missing from the rota, junior doctors, now called resident doctors, are often left to pick up the slack. The first things to go? Breaks and reflection time. Opportunities for career development. Our wellbeing.

Doctors picket outside St Thomas' Hospital on Friday (Reuters)

Critics will say it’s always been like this, and we knew what we were getting into when we chose medicine. Junior doctors should be cutting our cloth harder and faster, like doctors did back in the “good old days”.

But it hasn’t always been like this. The pressure of an ageing population, the rise in complex health conditions, and increased demand on services, coupled with over a decade of brutal reductions in capital spending under the previous government, is completely unprecedented.

We are expected to do more with less. Year on year, the numbers in our clinics and waiting rooms increase while the number of doctors stays the same.

Much of our community is sick – from poverty, lack of education, alcoholism, smoking, domestic abuse, and poor diet. We want to help, but the 10-minute appointment slots make it feel like drinking from a firehose.

Health secretary Wes Streeting has this week proclaimed that the NHS is “turning a corner”. But to many of us, the corner feels as though it lies at the end of a very long, dimly lit corridor – with a line of patients in ambulances waiting at the far end.

He recently reposted Labour’s promotional message proudly claiming that ambulance response times had been cut by 10 minutes since last year. A strange boast, given that ambulance waits remain among the worst ever recorded and still miss national targets across the country by a wide margin.

And to add to the loss of morale amongst doctors is the increasingly sour and combative tone he has taken when speaking about junior doctors – a tone that feels wildly out of place for a Labour government. This isn’t to diminish the impact of pay degradation. Stripping doctors of pay has undoubtedly fuelled the morale crisis.

And while he urges junior doctors to be “reasonable”, Streeting has shown a striking reluctance to engage in serious pay negotiations – even multi-year agreements that would not require immediate, large upfront cost. For a Labour government that insists it values NHS staff, the refusal to even explore staggered pay restoration feels oddly contentious. It reinforces the sense that junior doctors are being lectured rather than listened to.

But the crisis runs deeper than pay. It’s about working in an NHS that is properly funded and properly staffed – one that values social care as much as medical care and gives people the time and space to explore their health, not just their sickness. We cannot meet that vision by simply working harder. The NHS needs sustained investment: in doctors, in training posts, and ultimately in the patients we serve.

Can we get this kind of sustained investment from our government without striking? I’m not sure. If a deal can be reached without focusing solely on pay, these are the areas Streeting should now turn his attention to. And that shift must begin with the way he and his government speak to junior doctors – replacing combative rhetoric with solidarity and unity. After all, we are all fighting for the same thing: an NHS that works for everyone.

Holly Tarn is a resident doctor in East Sussex