ENGLAND — Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the government "categorically did not change its deal" with resident doctors to end ongoing industrial action over pay and jobs, urging the British Medical Association's resident doctors' committee to return to the negotiating table. A six-day walkout by resident doctors in England was set to end at 06:59 on Monday.

Streeting said he wanted to meet the BMA resident doctors' committee for further negotiations but that the committee had refused. He published a letter on X to the doctors' union expressing disappointment and frustration about the latest walkout. In the letter, he wrote that "Most of the deal remains on the table" but that "The financial and operational impact of [the BMA's] latest strikes has made it impossible for us to bring forward 1,000 of the 4,500 extra training places to this year."

He said resident doctors had received a 28.9% pay rise within the first weeks of the Labour government. "There's a deal on the table that would have given them an average 4.9% more for this year, 7.1% for some of the lowest-paid doctors," he said. He added that changing the deal at the last minute would not be in his interest or the government's.

"We've gone as far as we can, I'm never going to shut the door to the BMA, I'm not pretending I've solved all of their problems in less than two years. The BMA need to stop pretending that I can, there has to be some give and take," he said. He said either the BMA did not read the detail of the deal or, faced with the resident doctors' committee, it was more convenient to blame the government.

Dr. Jack Fletcher, chair of the BMA resident doctors' committee, offered a different account of the negotiations. Fletcher said one- or two-year settlements were discussed in talks, but that at the very last minute the government insisted a three-year deal was the only option with reduced investment. He said that throughout the dispute the BMA had negotiated in good faith with a genuine desire to reach a resolution, and that the resident doctors' committee remained open and willing to meet with the health secretary.

The BMA said that despite receiving pay rises worth 33% over the past four years, doctors are being paid a fifth less than they were in 2008 after accounting for inflation.