Doctors’ leaders have rejected claims that patients will lose their lives as a result of strike action by resident doctors in England.
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced on Monday that a five-day walkout planned for Wednesday would go ahead as planned after members rejected a new offer from the Government.
Former BMA member Lord Winston, who quit the union in protest over the strikes, said on Monday that he thought people would die as a result.
The Government accused the union of staging the strike at a time that would “inflict as much damage as they can” on the NHS amid rising levels of flu in hospitals.
Asked about the suggestion that people would die during this industrial action, Dr Shivam Sharma, deputy chairman of the BMA’s resident doctors committee, told LBC Radio: “I would completely disagree with that, and I want to be evidence-based – we know that senior colleagues, consultants will be covering this strike action, and we know that studies have shown that mortality rates do not increase, they stay the same, if not decrease during strike action because we have those experienced senior consultants that are covering.
“And actually, what’s dangerous for patients is continuing down this trend where doctors continue to leave, patients aren’t getting the care that they deserve, and doctors are feeling that they’re in a system that is setting them up to fail.”
Tomorrow’s strike is still entirely avoidable, @wesstreeting should work with us to come up with a credible offer to end this jobs crisis and avert the real terms pay cuts he is pushing in 2026.
— The BMA (@TheBMA) December 16, 2025
We're willing to work to find a solution if he is@fletchjack pic.twitter.com/5MKk6f3lR9
The offer from the Government included a fast expansion of specialist training posts as well as covering out-of-pocket expenses such as exam fees, but did not include extra pay.
Dr Sharma said that the feedback the union received was that the Government’s offer “doesn’t go far enough on both jobs and pay”.
Health minister Stephen Kinnock said the Government had offered for the union to extend its mandate and stage the strike in January instead of December, telling Times Radio: “For reasons best known to themselves, they have insisted on going ahead with this strike action right in the heart of the Christmas season, and that I think is dangerous, reckless and irresponsible.”
He said: “Most reasonable, fair-minded people would be looking at this and saying: ‘Well, if I got a 29% pay rise, I would not be coming back a few months later asking for 26% more’.
“It’s just not reasonable. It’s not really living in the real world.
“And I just fear that the leadership of the BMA are just hell-bent on going on to these strikes and frankly trying to inflict as much damage as they can on the NHS, and that is just simply the wrong thing to do.”
Asked whether he supported Conservative Party pledges to ban doctors from going on strike, Mr Kinnock told LBC Radio: “That’s not the right way to deal with this issue.
“The right way to deal with this issue is to just say to the resident doctors and to the BMA leadership in particular: ‘You need to come into the real world. You need to see sense on this one. We have made an extraordinarily good offer and if you want any of the other parties in power, particularly to the right of the Labour Party, you’re going to see Reform wanting to privatise the NHS, turn it on its head, and create the kind of NHS that I’m pretty sure most resident doctors would not want to see’.
“So what I would say to them generally is: ‘Be careful what you wish for’.”
The Daily Telegraph reported that NHS leaders said the effect of the strikes would be “more severe… due to the proximity of winter pressures and proximity to Christmas”.
The newspaper said that Mike Prentice, the NHS national director for emergency planning, had urged leaders in a memo to focus on reducing hospital bed occupancy “ahead of, during and after the industrial action, as we go into the peak holiday period”.
“These strikes will be followed by two full working days before Christmas (and the bank holidays that follow) where huge effort will be needed to safely discharge patients and get people home in time for Christmas,” he said.
Hospitals have been told to aim to deliver 95% of usual activity during the strike, though health leaders said this could be “more challenging due to the onset of winter pressures and rising flu”.
Rachel Power, chief executive of the Patients Association, told the newspaper: “Older people are already the most likely to be admitted to hospital with flu, and many will now face the very real prospect of being stuck in hospital over Christmas, and potentially well beyond it, because there simply won’t be enough staff to safely discharge them.”
The five-day strike, which starts at 7am on Wednesday, will be the 14th by resident doctors since 2023.
It comes amid warnings of a “super flu” sweeping the nation, with flu cases in hospitals in England at a record level for this time of year.
Resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, make up around half of the medical workforce in England.
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