‘When doctors strike, patients die’: Kemi Badenoch tells LBC as union refuses to rule out further strikes
Kemi Badenoch told LBC “we can't have patients being held hostage like this” as she repeated her proposal to ban doctors strikes if the Tories return to power.
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It comes as resident doctors said their door is open for talks to reach an end to the dispute, but refused to rule out further strikes ahead of their five-day walkout coming to an end.
The Tory leader made the comments in a lengthy back-and-forth with a striking resident doctor in the NHS named Niamh during a phone in with LBC’s Iain Dale.
“Medicine is a vocation, and doctors in this country do a fantastic job,” the Tory leader said.
“The issue I have is with the British Medical Association (BMA), which is a trade union that is becoming more militant. Our policy on banning strikes is coming about because the BMA has been doing this again and again and again.
She added: “The truth is, when doctors go on strike, patients die. This is what we saw in the last strike.
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“We also can't afford this. It's not fair on tax payers. Even the NHS is complaining. So what we would do is move to what we do with army officers, with police, where we have a pay body that makes the decision.”
Badenoch added that she knows resident doctors feel like they are underpaid, but they will be paid more than many other public sector workers.
The latest strike began on Friday amid an ongoing row over pay, after resident doctors rejected the government’s pay offer of a 3.6% increase
The union claims the offer doesn’t address “pay erosion” since 2008/09. But the NHS could be facing more strike chaos as the BMA refused to rule out further strikes, and health workers at two top unions also rejected the government’s pay offer in the past week.
On Sunday, Kemi Badenoch pledged to ban doctors’ strikes if the Conservatives return to power.
The Tory leader said that her party would introduce primary legislation to block medics from taking widespread industrial action, placing the same restrictions on them that apply to police officers and soldiers.
The Conservatives said they would reintroduce minimum service level requirements, which were brought in by the previous government and scrapped by Labour, across the health service.
The BMA said the Tory pledge was "a desperate intervention from a Conservative Party that spent nearly 15 years failing the NHS - and is now trying to shift blame by attacking the rights of doctors".
The Tory leader also said this is “not the time” for a 28% pay increase, highlighting the current the political and economic landscape in Britain.
“We have to look at the political situation and the economic situation that we’re in. We would love to be able to give, you know, pay rises as much as possible to everyone in the public sector,” she said.
“But the truth is, this is being paid for by taxing other people. And what we're seeing is businesses are closing, jobs are disappearing. Unemployment is increasing.
“That means that the government is going to have even less money to pay wages. This is not the time for another 28% pay rise.
She added that: “We can't keep having endless strikes. And the whole country, especially patients being held, hostage like this. So what we want to see is something that is fairer, that is fair to doctors, but that is also fair to the taxpayer.”
Niamh, resident doctor from Bristol, said she “has to push back” on Badenoch’s claims, adding that “striking is always the last resort.”
“It's a last resort because we have made noise time and time again about the issues that we're facing in the NHS and pay is one of them,” she said.
“And I think it's really important to highlight that if you take striking away from doctors, if you take away our ability to vote with a ballot, we will vote with our feet.”
It comes as hospital leaders call on the BMA and the Government to end the strikes after five days of disruption across the NHS in England.
Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, of the BMA's Resident Doctors Committee (RDC), said that they are willing to re-enter talks with the Government but that they “haven’t heard from Wes Streeting”.
“We have always said that our door is open for talks,” Dr Ryan said at a picket line outside King George Hospital in Ilford on Tuesday.
"Should he have called us over the weekend to say: 'Come around the table, here's an offer I've got', we would have absolutely done so, with the idea that we could have called off the strike action.
"Unfortunately, we haven't heard from him yet. That doesn't mean that he's not going to call us tomorrow - our door is always open."