Kemi Badenoch has said the Conservatives will ban strikes by all NHS doctors if they return to power.The Tory leader said her party would introduce legislation for minimum service levels and block doctors taking widespread industrial action, placing them under the same restrictions that apply to police officers and soldiers.Thousands of resident doctors, formerly junior doctors, began a five-day strike on Friday after the government and British Medical Association (BMA) failed to reach an agreement over pay.The previous government passed a law requiring minimum service levels in certain sectors, including some health services, but only ever got as far as considering it for doctors.In the UK, the only people legally prohibited from going on strike are members of the police force and non-civilian members of the armed forces. Doctors have the same right to strike as any other employee in the public or private sector.The BMA says that despite a 5.4% average pay rise this year, following a 22% increase over the previous two years, pay is still down by a fifth since 2008 once inflation is taken into account.A pay uplift of 26% is needed to reverse real-term wage decline, the union says.But announcing her policy on Sunday, Badeonch accused the union of becoming “more and more militant”, adding that the pay rise resident doctors had already received was “well above anything that any other group has had”.”Doctors do incredibly important work. Medicine is a vocation, not just a job. That is why in government we offered …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnKemi Badenoch has said the Conservatives will ban strikes by all NHS doctors if they return to power.The Tory leader said her party would introduce legislation for minimum service levels and block doctors taking widespread industrial action, placing them under the same restrictions that apply to police officers and soldiers.Thousands of resident doctors, formerly junior doctors, began a five-day strike on Friday after the government and British Medical Association (BMA) failed to reach an agreement over pay.The previous government passed a law requiring minimum service levels in certain sectors, including some health services, but only ever got as far as considering it for doctors.In the UK, the only people legally prohibited from going on strike are members of the police force and non-civilian members of the armed forces. Doctors have the same right to strike as any other employee in the public or private sector.The BMA says that despite a 5.4% average pay rise this year, following a 22% increase over the previous two years, pay is still down by a fifth since 2008 once inflation is taken into account.A pay uplift of 26% is needed to reverse real-term wage decline, the union says.But announcing her policy on Sunday, Badeonch accused the union of becoming “more and more militant”, adding that the pay rise resident doctors had already received was “well above anything that any other group has had”.”Doctors do incredibly important work. Medicine is a vocation, not just a job. That is why in government we offered …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
