MP urges Health Secretary to support ‘undervalued and underpaid’ junior doctors

This morning, Cumbrian MP Tim Farron has written to the Secretary of State for Health, Steven Barclay, urging him to get round the negotiating table and agree a pay settlement with junior doctors.

About 47,000 NHS junior doctors in England are on a four-day strike as they claim there has been a 26% real-terms pay cut since 2008 because pay rises have been below inflation.

In his letter to the Health Secretary, Tim said: "I implore you to start negotiating with the representatives of the BMA as there will be no winners from the current impasse and we have to recognise that there is a staffing crisis in the NHS created by the conditions we expect junior doctors to work under and the poor pay we give them for many years as they gain more relevant experience.

"When the Government can waste millions on PPE contracts and fraudulent business loans but expect doctors to put their lives on their line for us every day during the pandemic, this gratitude seems like a very dim and distant memory.

"Being met with nothing but silence and refusal to come to the table certainly will be a negotiating strategy destined to fail and it is beholden to the Government to reach a settlement that gets the NHS back to full strength as quickly as possible."

Speaking today, Tim said: "One of the major problems in our NHS is a lack of staffing, but newly trained doctors are our best solution to this problem.

"How foolish it is of the Government to instead treat them as the enemy. Until the Government realises this, the main losers will be patients."