Health Secretary Steve Barclay: Junior doctors 'suddenly' walked away from pay talks ahead of strike

The head of NHS England has warned that strike disruption will only get worse as junior doctors and consultants prepare to take industrial action this month

The Health Secretary has accused junior doctors of "suddenly" walking away from talks as NHS England boss Amanda Pritchard warned strikes may get worse.

Junior doctors are planning to stage the largest walkout in the history of the NHS later this month with a five-day strike from July 13-18.

Steve Barclay told the Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme on Sky News: "We were in the middle of discussing some of those wider non-pay issues.

"It was the junior doctors suddenly who walked away."

The British Medical Association (BMA) said it is willing to continue talks.

Challenged over whether a 6% pay rise for NHS would be acceptable, Mr Barclay said: “These will be discussions that I have on behalf of the health workforce with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, that the Education Secretary will have on behalf of teachers, and other ministers will have across government, so we will have those and we’ll make announcements in due course.”

He said the Government had recognised both the needs of staff and the needs of the wider economy with recent pay talks.

He said that was “exactly what we have done with the Agenda for Change, which is why not only did we apply the full pay review body recommendations, we actually went further in terms of a lump sum this time because we hugely recognise the pressure that NHS staff have been under”.

“Of course we need to look at the wider pressures in terms of inflation… we need to look at these things in the round.

“That’s what we did last time, which is why we made adjustments.

“Of course we will take a similar approach this time.”

Co-chairman of the BMA junior doctors committee Dr Vivek Trivedi said: “We have always been willing to continue talking.

“It was the Government who cancelled our remaining meetings after we called for strike action, but we have made it clear that we will call strikes off if (Rishi) Sunak makes a credible offer.

“A 5% offer when inflation is in double digits is yet another real-terms pay cut, and would only worsen the already 26% real-terms pay cut we’ve endured prior to that.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that Steve Barclay has been negotiating in bad faith.

It comes as NHS England boss Amanda Pritchard said that pay was a matter for unions and ministers while talking to the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday.

She warned: “There has been a significant amount of disruption and that is only, at the moment, going to get more significant as we hit the next round of strikes.

“It is patients that are paying the price for the fact that all sides have not yet managed to reach a resolution.”

“The sooner that we can being this to an end the better.”

“We can’t let it become business as usual for the NHS.”

On Friday, the Government published its plan for a massive shake-up in how the NHS recruits and retains staff, promising thousands more workers in a bid to revive and reform the embattled health service.

Mr Barclay dodged questions about where funding for the £2.4 billion plan would come from, as he insisted that ministers were “making progress” on the prime minister's pledge to cut waiting lists.

Under the plan, more than 300,000 extra nurses, doctors and other health workers are expected to be employed in the NHS in England over the coming years.

Along with new retention measures, it could also mean the health service has at least an extra 60,000 doctors, 170,000 more nurses and 71,000 more allied health professionals in place by 2036/37.

But it is announced at time where the NHS continues to grapple with industrial action and staff frustration at pay and conditions, as post-pandemic pressures continue.

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