Wes Streeting sympathises with resident doctors' poor pay claims

Heath secretary Wes Streeting has sympathises with resident doctors' poor pay claims amidst upcoming doctors' strikes across the country.

Transcript

00:00The resident doctors strikes are really challenging for the NHS across the whole

00:03country coming as they are at the busiest time of year for the NHS and with

00:08flu abound that's made this winter particularly challenging regardless of

00:13strike actions and now exacerbated by strike actions and here in London we

00:18know that there is a particular impact because we've got a larger concentration

00:21of resident doctors here in the capital so I'm especially grateful to other

00:25staff across the capital in the NHS especially our consultants who are

00:30stepping in to make sure that services are safe we're going to be asking a lot

00:33of them over the coming weeks as well so I'm particularly grateful to them. My

00:38frustration about the dispute with resident doctors is actually I agree with

00:41them on so much. I recognise the pain they've felt in their pockets which is why

00:46we did a 28.9% pay rise. I'm absolutely willing to talk to them about future

00:52years what I can't do is commit to a 26% pay rise they are now asking for on top

00:58of that which they've already had. We also want to work with them on the jobs

01:03package which I think actually is quite supported by doctors but what they've

01:08told us with that recent ballot is they're still very much in dispute with

01:12us on pay. The NHS is coping over the strike so far we know it's extremely

01:19challenging. We know that patients are waiting in some pretty challenging

01:25conditions and staff are working in some very challenging conditions. My priority

01:29is to get us through these five days of strike action, help the NHS to recover

01:33over what are going to be a very challenging few weeks and then to do two

01:38things. One is to give everyone involved in the resident doctors dispute the

01:44chance to take stock, decompress, get around the table early in the new year to

01:50see if we can start 2026 off on a better footing and at the same time just as I

01:55did this time last year I'm already planning for winter next year.