Resident doctors say they have had “constructive discussions” with the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, and talks will continue over the next few days, in an attempt to avert planned strike action.The doctors, previously known as junior doctors, announced last week that they will walk out for five consecutive days from 25 July until 30 July in a dispute about pay. Representatives of the doctors’ union, the BMA, said the discussions so far have involved looking at “creative solutions” and “nothing is off the table”.The government has insisted it cannot improve its offer of a 5.4% pay increase for this year but is considering other measures to improve working conditions. Speaking straight after the talks, Mr Streeting said: “We had a constructive conversation with the BMA today and we’ll be having further conversations in the coming days to try to avert strike action.”While we cannot move on pay after a 28.9% pay rise, we are working on areas where we can improve working lives for resident doctors.”Strikes have a serious cost for patients, so I am appealing to the BMA to call them off and instead work together to improve their members’ working conditions and continue rebuilding the NHS.”Representatives of the BMA union said there was a “window of opportunity” for further talks to develop. Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, said: “We explored many issues, spoke about a lot of things at high levels, looking at creative solutions to finding a genu …
