Resident doctors begin longest strike yet as Streeting accuses BMA of hypocrisy over pay – UK politics live

he health secretary and the BMA trade accusations over who bears responsibility for the collapse of talks In his interviews this morning Wes Streeting , the health secretary, accused the BMA of hypocrisy over pay because the organisation is offering its own staff far less than the resident doctors are demanding.

He told BBC Breakfast: And here’s the real kicker; having rejected this deal because the pay offer apparently wasn’t good enough at 4.9%, the BMA are offering their own staff 2.75% on affordability grounds.

Why does the BMA think they can get away with telling their own staff they only get 2.75% because that’s all they can afford, whilst rejecting a 4.9% offer because that’s all the government can afford.

We think that strikes cost £50m a day.

And so that is, an accurate reflection of the cost of these strikes.

What is true is that in order to deliver a full pay restoration back to 2008 levels, using the RPI account of inflation, it would cost in the order of £3bn a year.

Let’s then assume that other NHS staff would understandably demand the same.

Then that cost would be more like £30bn a year.

That is more than the entire cost of the Ministry of Justice’s entire budget for running the criminal justice system.

Continue reading…

原文链接: The Guardian