We need to ban doctors’ strikes. On Tuesday, resident doctors walked out of work for the 15th time since 2023 – strike action that has cost the NHS around £3billion in the past three years.
I have a great deal of respect for doctors. My father was a GP. I know the sense of pride and value doctors place on serving their patients.
That’s why I am so frustrated by the actions of the British Medical Association (BMA). This militant union is acting less like a union and more like a cartel. In the process, it’s betraying the patients that its members swore to serve.
In government, the Conservatives did our utmost to stem the power of the unions.
We passed the Trade Union Act, which included a minimum 50 per cent turnout requirement for balloted strike action.
And we introduced minimum service levels, to ensure that public health, education, borders and more always had an essential service during strikes.
Labour have scrapped all the Conservatives’ legislation that was intended to put a break on strikes. Now they are seeing the reality of their Faustian bargain with the unions.
Since Keir Starmer walked into 10 Downing Street, the BMA’s strike action has cost the NHS £1.2billion, money that could have been used to build two hospitals – or 34 A&E departments.
Should doctors ever put their right to strike above the needs and safety of their patients?
But beyond the financial price, there is a real cost to patients.
Every strike day represents hundreds of thousands of appointments and operations cancelled, leaving patients at home in pain, worried about when their treatment will come.
In opposition, Starmer and Health Secretary Wes Streeting claimed the strikes were all the Conservatives’ fault and could be avoided by ‘treating staff with respect’.
One of Labour’s first acts was to hand resident doctors a 22 per cent pay rise with no strings attached. They did similar with the train drivers – shortly before they too went on strike that same year.
Streeting is the best Labour minister at self-promotion but while he’s long on style, he’s short on substance.
He’s too busy plotting a march on Downing Street to get to grips with the BMA.
The Conservatives have had enough. If the BMA refuses to act reasonably, the Government must step in to ensure the safety of patients.
That’s why I will ban resident doctors and consultants from going on strike – as we already do for the police and Armed Forces.
We will reintroduce minimum service levels across the NHS, so that all patients know the NHS will always be there when they need it.
This is not anti-doctor – it’s pro-patient. My father dedicated his life to his patients and there will be many doctors who agree with me that the BMA are now betraying their profession.
No government should allow any organisation, however professional its members, to hold patients to ransom.
Labour has chosen the unions over patients. The Conservatives choose patients, because only we are serious about getting Britain working again.
