Resident doctors in England are set to strike for nearly a week in April as the NHS row over jobs and pay deepens.
The latest round of industrial action, announced by the British Medical Association (BMA), will start just after the Easter bank holiday weekend from 7am on 7 April until 6.59am on 13 April, the union said.
It marks the 15th strike by resident doctors – formerly called junior doctors – since March 2023, following on from a similar walkout in December, as doctors call for pay to be restored to 2008 levels, representing a 26 per cent increase.
Sir Keir Starmer has branded the BMA’s decision to reject the latest doctors’ pay deal “reckless” as he issued a 48-hour deadline on Monday to call off the strikes.
The prime minister warned that ministers will withdraw an offer of thousands more NHS jobs if the strikes are not cancelled, writing in The Times, that the NHS is facing damage if the walkouts go ahead.
BMA Resident Doctors Committee chairman Jack Fletcher hit back, saying ministers “effectively moved the goalposts on the deal at the last minute”.
He added: "Removing potential doctors' posts at a time when corridor care and GP queues are already putting the NHS under pressure, is clearly bad for patients.
"Creating posts and improving patient care should not be dependent on calling off a strike. But these negotiations are not about arbitrary cutoffs, as the prime minister seems to think.
"Any 'deadline' disappears the moment there is a credible and sustainable offer on the table.
"Our focus remains on getting a good deal for both doctors and for patients, and we are seeking to talk once again with the government later today with every intention of achieving a meaningful outcome that could see the strikes called off and a pay deal we can support."
Here is everything you need to know about the dispute so far:
Why are resident doctors striking?
Resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, are qualified doctors in their first years of training. A fifth are completing their first two foundation years, while the remainder are in core or speciality registrar training.
The agreed salary for those on foundation training is between £38,831 and £44,439, with specialist training salaries rising to £73,992. That includes the 5.4 per cent increase awarded last year, but does not include London weighting.
Resident doctor pay has risen almost 30 per cent in the three years from 2023/24 to 2025/6, including 22.3 per cent since Labour came into power. However, the BMA says that doctors need an extra 26 per cent increase over the next few years to restore their pay after inflation, since 2008 has seen it erode in real terms.
With the current 5.4 per cent uplift, the BMA says doctors won’t see their pay restored for 12 years, or until 2036.
The BMA wants pay boosted to between £47,308 and £54,274 for foundation doctors, and up to a maximum of £90,989 for residents in specialist training at the highest end, over a flexible negotiated period.
There are also calls from resident doctors to decrease competition for speciality training posts, with many struggling to find roles, even if they have already worked in the NHS.
What has the government offered?
Last December, the government made the BMA a last-minute offer to increase speciality training posts over the next three years by 4,000, repurposed from existing roles.
In 2025, there were over 30,000 applicants for 10,000 of these jobs, some of which came from overseas applicants.
The government’s offer also promised to prioritise UK graduates for these roles, or those who have already worked in the NHS, and to fund certain expenses like exam fees.
No pay increase was included in the offer, with Mr Streeting remaining steadfast that he will not reopen negotiations on pay.
Resident doctors overwhelmingly voted to reject the offer by 83 to 17 per cent.
During a speech in East London last week, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said that the government chose to maintain as much pre-planned care as possible during previous rounds of industrial action.
He said: “Under our predecessors, there was an acceptance that when doctors go on strike, planned operations just get cancelled, as if these were pain-free, consequence-free cancellations for patients.
“We didn’t accept that, and we made the safety case for maintaining planned care, keeping 95 per cent of activity going, even during strikes.”
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