Lord Robert Winston, a professor and TV doctor who was a pioneer of IVF treatment, has resigned from the British Medical Association (BMA) over planned strikes by resident doctors.<\/p>\n
Resident doctors, previously known as junior doctors, are planning a walkout for five consecutive days from 25 July until 30 July over a pay dispute with the government.<\/p>\n
In an interview with The Times, the Labour peer and host of the BBC series Child of Our Time urged against strike action, arguing it could damage people’s trust in the profession.<\/p>\n
The BMA met with the health secretary earlier this week and said the government had \u00ab\u00a0stated it will not negotiate on pay\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Lord Winston, 84, has been a member of the BMA since 1964.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I’ve paid my membership for a long time. I feel very strongly that this isn’t the time to be striking. I think that the country is really struggling in all sorts of ways, people are struggling in all sorts of ways,\u00a0\u00bb he told The Times.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Strike action completely ignores the vulnerability of people in front of you,\u00a0\u00bb he added.<\/p>\n
Resident doctors have been awarded a 5.4% pay rise for this financial year – which will go into pay packets from August – following a 22% increase over the previous two years.<\/p>\n
But the BMA says wages are still around 20% lower in real terms than in 2008.<\/p>\n
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the move was \u00ab\u00a0unnecessary and unreasonable\u00a0\u00bb, adding: \u00ab\u00a0The NHS is hanging by a thread – why on earth are they threatening to pull it?\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
The BMA’s resident doctors committee co-chairs Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt said they had \u00ab\u00a0no choice\u00a0\u00bb but to strike without \u00ab\u00a0a credible offer to keep on the path to restore our pay\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Lord Winston’s comments come after doctors and patient groups warned that the NHS in England was struggling to reduce wait times – a top priority for the NHS.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Doctors need to be reminded that every time they have a patient in front of them they have someone who is frightened and in pain. It’s important that doctors consider their own responsibility much more seriously,\u00a0\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
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Lord Robert Winston, a professor and TV doctor who was a pioneer of IVF treatment, has resigned from the British Medical Association (BMA) over planned strikes by resident doctors. Resident doctors, previously known as junior doctors, are planning a walkout for five consecutive days from 25 July until 30 July over a pay dispute with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}