𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has warned that the NHS is now at ‘one minute to midnight’ and is facing its worst week since the Covid pandemic.

Speaking this morning, Mr Streeting reiterated his condemnation of the British Medical Association trade union, which plans to put its members on strike next week. While the government has made a number of commitments of junior doctors on job vacancies, prioritising British-trained students over immigrants, the BMA is still pushing for a massive 26% pay rise.

Mr Streeting has said that the collision of the current superflu crisis with strikes next week means he can no longer guarantee patient safety in the NHS over the coming days.

Speaking on LBC this morning he ominously warned he can no longer guarantee that patients will not die over the coming week as a result of the crisis.

The top cabinet minister fumed: “I can only assume… [the BMA] know that this week will be most painful for the NHS.”

“Most painful for me, sure, but given the pressure that puts on other NHS staff and the risk it poses to patients, I don’t understand why the BMA have not been willing to compromise.”

Asked, if the collapse of the NHS is midnight on a clock how close to midnight the health service currently is, Mr Streeting said the NHS is “effectively” at “one minute to midnight”.

“The thing that I am genuinely fearful of is even if I throw more money at this situation now at this time to get us through the next week of strikes, there’s only a finite number of doctors and staff; there’s only a finite number of care home beds and community-based care.

“So if you’ve got strikes and you’ve got flu, and you’ve got all these challenges on corridors, and you’ve got demand going up rather than down, I just don’t think there’s a lever I can pull, I don’t think there’s an amount of money I can throw that means I can sit on your programme and guarantee patient safety over the next week.

“That’s a pretty terrifying position not just for me to be in but for the doctors and NHS staff who are confronting that challenge to be in, because they are the ones that are going to be bearing it on the frontline.”

Challenged by a junior doctor who said Labour’s pay rise last year has not been sufficient, Mr Streeting hit back demanding to know who else in the public sector has enjoyed such a large pay rise.

He asked: “You are right that that 28.9% pay rise covers a three year period, but honestly – there are not many people in the public sector, and very few beyond, who have had a 28.9% rise over the last few years.

“Now I know that’s not as far as you and the BMA might want me to go, it is as far as I think the country can afford right now.

“And I just ask you, whether it’s on pay or whether it’s on jobs, do not let the perfect be the enemy of good.

He added that he cannot understand why the union have already led two rounds of strike action following a 28.9% pay rise.

“At this stage, when we are a week before Christmas, when you know the challenges the NHS is under even better than I do because you’re working in it, I cannot understand why when there is this jobs offer on the table… why you and your colleagues might still vote for strike action now.

“I do not understand why your union did not take up a reasonable compromise of at least postponing strike action until January if what you really want to do is give me a kicking.

“But for goodness sake at this stage voting against this offer, voting to go on strike, it’s self-defeating for doctors, it puts untold pressure on other NHS staff who are going to be working those conditions, and – I do not make this point this point casually or lightly – it risks serious harm to patients. Honestly, I cannot sit here and look you in the eye and tell you no patient will come to harm or fatal harm.”

The top Labour minister backed away from some of the recent language used to describe the union such as “moaning minnies” and “juvenile delinquents”.

He insisted the language was directed solely at the union’s leadership rather than its membership, but said he would back away from reusing the ad hominem attacks in the interests of attempting to reset his relationship.

Junior doctors will walk out from the 17th to the 22nd December should they fail to cancel their strike in the coming hours.