Health secretary refuses to resume talks with striking doctors

The health secretary, Victoria Atkins, has refused to resume talks with junior doctors unless they call off their strike.

As doctors entered their second day of a three-day strike in England, Atkins showed no sign of shifting position.

Talks between the government and the doctors’ union, the British Medical Association, broke down earlier this month after ministers refused to make a final offer before the BMA’s deadline.

Amid fears that the strike could overwhelm hospitals already under pressure from winter viruses, Atkins said doctors had “picked the worst week in the NHS’s calendar” for industrial action.

The strike began at 7am on 20 December and is due to finish at the same time on Saturday. Junior doctors make up almost half of all doctors in England and it comes as the NHS is struggling with one of its toughest winters on record.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday, Atkins said the junior doctors committee, which organised the industrial action, “decided to do it three days in the run-up to Christmas and they have also now picked the worst week in the NHS’s calendar in which to be on strike”.

She added: “There will be many, many doctors listening to this who feel deeply uncomfortable that their committee has called these strikes at this time. I would encourage anyone who feels like that quietly to consider whether this committee is in fact representing their views.”

The BMA’s junior doctors committee has said the government’s offer of a further 3% rise on top of the 8% already imposed – was nowhere near enough. They argue they are due a 35% pay rise to make up for the 26.2% fall in the value of their pay since 2008.

Atkins told Sky News that she was “very much keen to negotiate with junior doctors” and that if they called off strikes the government would return to the negotiating table. She answered “yes” to whether there would be extra money for them.

But the co-chair of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, Dr Robert Laurenson, told Sky News on Wednesday that the government was “completely reckless” to have an offer it was willing to make but refuse to during strikes.

“It’s actually madness and it’s the behaviour of an irrational partner,” he said. “The government have the power to sort this out by giving us something sensible to put to our members, and until they do that, we have nothing to put to our members.”