Resident doctors announce four-day strike in June

Resident doctors will strike for four days in June, the British Medical Association (BMA) has announced.

The BMA said walkouts will begin at 7am on Monday, 15 June, and end at 6.59am on Friday, 19 June.

It also warned further strikes would be announced for July should no progress be made.

Health leaders warned the disruption could lead to thousands of patients having appointments and operations cancelled or rescheduled.

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It comes after the union's first talks with the new health secretary James Murray on Wednesday.

Mr Murray, appointed following the resignation of Wes Streeting earlier this month, said he wanted to have a "productive relationship" with the BMA.

But he warned the union's demands of further pay increases were "unrealistic, unaffordable and unsustainable".

Mr Murray said: "I'm disappointed that the BMA have refused to consider further discussions about how to strengthen the deal on the table and have instead rushed once again to unnecessary and unreasonable strike action.

"I was clear with the BMA that after a 33.4% pay rise for resident doctors over the last four years - the highest anywhere across the public sector - the BMA's demands for further substantial pay increases this year are unrealistic, unaffordable, and unsustainable.

"These are simply not grounds for yet more strike action, which patients do not support, puts further pressure on other staff and costs the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds."

But Dr Jack Fletcher, chairman of the BMA's resident doctors' committee, accused Mr Murray of "unwillingness" to find a solution.

He said: "We had hoped that a change in leadership at the Department of Health and Social Care would lead to a change in approach. Sadly, we have run up against the same unwillingness to move we encountered under Mr Streeting.

"We were prepared to give Mr Murray time to settle into his role before completing the work his predecessor left unfinished - to both make a fair and meaningful pay offer and make concrete commitments to end the jobs bottleneck throttling the careers of our colleagues.

"He had a genuine opportunity to break this logjam with fresh energy and ambition. He has not taken it. Instead, we are hearing the same tired line: vagueness on new jobs and no further money on the table.

"We cannot be asked to negotiate in good faith for weeks, only to be told there is nothing left to negotiate about on pay and no further details at this stage on jobs."

June will mark the 16th strike from resident doctors since 2023, with the previous one lasting for six days over the Easter holiday.

Matthew Hopkins, interim acute and ambulance network director at The NHS Alliance, described the strike action as "wholly irresponsible".

He said: "This latest round of industrial action, the 16th stoppage in the last three years, puts at risk the hard-worn progress the health service has made in recent months in bringing down waiting lists and driving up productivity.

"Health leaders and their teams will be deeply concerned about the threat of this fresh walkout by resident doctors, given the additional pressure it would place on already stretched clinical and administrative colleagues.

"As always, every effort will be made to minimise disruption, but thousands of people still face having appointments and operations rescheduled."

Mr Streeting had initially agreed a deal to end strikes by resident doctors at the beginning of the Labour Government, in 2024, but industrial action by medics resumed in 2025.

Before April's strikes, he had offered a 4.9% increase in average basic pay from 2026 to 2027, and claimed this would have left resident doctors 35.2% better off than four years ago.

Resident doctor members of the BMA have a mandate for industrial action until August.

The union is also balloting consultants and specialist, associate specialist and speciality (SAS) doctors in a vote due to close on 6 July.

(c) Sky News 2026: Resident doctors announce four-day strike in June