Victoria Atkins says calling of doctor's strike just one week before the election is 'deeply cynical'

2 June 2024, 11:51

The Health Secretary has told LBC that the calling of a junior doctor’s strike a week before the election was a "deeply, deeply cynical" move.

She also suggested that Labour has "tipped a wink" to the British Medical Association that it will meet the union's pay demands.

A full walkout by junior doctors will start at 7am on June 27 and will end at 7am on July 2 - just two days before the General Election.

Speaking to LBC's Sunday with Lewis Goodall, Victoria Atkins said: "On the day that Labour is announcing its health policy, the Junior Doctors Committee of the BMA suddenly announced strikes a week before polling day.

"Now it will be for listeners themselves to decide whether that that timing is a coincidence.

"But what is noticeable is that my shadow counterpart, my Labour counterpart, tipped a bit of a wink to the unions when he said he wouldn't be able to meet their 35% pay rise on day one.

"Well, what does that mean for days two, three and four? And what on Earth does that mean for other members of our highly valued healthcare workforce?"

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When asked if, as health secretary, she was trying to secure a deal before the election, she said she would only attempt negotiation if strikes were called off.

"I've said to the BMA as I have throughout this, the moment they call strike action, the NHS has to then move into the gear of strike management because it takes weeks of management before a strike is called, which the JDC know full well," she said.

"You know, the 1.4 million appointments that we have had cancelled over the 12 months of industrial action that has a real impact for patients and people listening at home.

"If they call off the strikes, of course I will get back around the table.

"But for them to walk out of mediation in a general election campaign when they know I simply do not have the freedoms that I do as Secretary of State outside an election campaign, when I have wanted to add to their up to 10.3% pay rise that they have already had, then I'm afraid that calling of a strike action I found to be deeply, deeply cynical. 

"And I very much hope that they will see sense and call it off."