Correspondence

BMA resident doctor industrial action

Published 30 July 2025

To: Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, co-chairs of the BMA Resident Doctors Committee.

Thank you for your letter of 29 July inviting me to get back to the negotiation table, which is ironic because I never left. I am ready to continue the conversation from where you left it.

As I made clear last week, the decision taken by your committee to proceed with strike action over the past 5 days was deeply disappointing and entirely unnecessary given the seemingly promising discussions we had to explore areas where we could make substantive improvements to doctors’ working lives.

My letter to your committee, drafted following extensive engagement with you both, outlined a path to agreeing a package that could bring an end to this dispute. Had you and your committee not rushed to strike, we would be in the second of the 3 weeks I asked for to work intensively together to improve the working lives of your members.

I note you have now opened a second dispute on jobs - a dispute that could have been avoided if you were willing to discuss the very measures to expand training places that I was willing to make rapid progress on. I made clear my willingness to go further than the 1,000 new training posts we have already committed to and to prioritise UK medical graduates.

The consequences of your strike action have been a detrimental impact on patients, your members, your colleagues and the NHS, which might have been worse were it not for the considerable efforts of NHS leaders and front-line staff who stepped up. Your action has also been self-defeating, because you have squandered the considerable goodwill you had with me and this government. I cannot in good conscience let patients, or other NHS staff, pay the price for the costs of your decision.

I came into office hoping to reset the relationship between government and the resident doctor profession. Through this government’s actions working with the BMA, we have improved pay, conditions and career progression. I am serious about improving the working conditions of staff working in the NHS and restoring value after over a decade of neglect. I have been clear that while we cannot move on pay, this government is prepared to negotiate on areas related to your conditions at work, career progression and tangible measures which would put money in your members’ pockets.

I know your members want to be part of an improving NHS. With waiting lists the lowest they have been in 2 years, satisfaction with GPs on the up, 4.6 million appointments delivered in our first year, and our 10 Year Health Plan getting underway, we are turning the NHS around. Unnecessary strike action puts this at risk.

I was critical of my predecessors when they closed the door to the Junior Doctors Committee. My door remains open to the hope that we can still build the partnership with resident doctors I aspired to when I came in a year ago and, in that spirit, I am happy to meet with you early next week.

The Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care