Receive free UK labour disputes updates
We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest UK labour disputes news every morning.
The head of the main NHS doctors union has called on Rishi Sunak to back independent arbitration to settle a strike by junior members which has led to the cancellation of large numbers of hospital operations in England.
Philip Banfield, chair of the British Medical Association’s governing council, said he had written to the prime minister asking the government to agree to talks facilitated by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, an independent body, to try to “break the deadlock and reach a settlement with junior doctors”.
Junior doctors who are members of the BMA are due to walk out for an unprecedented five days from July 13, their fourth period of strike action since March. They are due to be followed for the first time by consultants who belong to the BMA on July 20 and 21 after they recently voted for industrial action.
More than 650,000 operations and appointments have been cancelled since a wave of strikes hit the NHS in December, which previously involved nurses and ambulance workers.
During the last walk out by junior doctors over three days in June, more than 100,00 patients did not receive scheduled treatment or consultations, according to data from NHS England.
Banfield told the BMA’s annual meeting in Liverpool that the union would “strike to the next general election — and beyond — if that is what it takes”.
But he suggested further industrial action could be averted if the government would agree to Acas playing a part in facilitating talks between the two sides.
The BMA first proposed a role for Acas in April and Banfield said that throughout the junior doctors’ dispute, “we have always said we will meet without preconditions anytime, anywhere, to resolve our issues. This offer still holds”.
However, an ally of health secretary Steve Barclay said Acas arbitration “is just not something we’re discussing at the moment. It’s not something we’re looking at”.
The BMA needed to “call off their strikes and get a proper talks process going” and until it moved on from its demand for a 35 per cent pay increase for junior doctors “it’s difficult to have a meaningful negotiation”, added this person.
Meanwhile, rail passengers across England face further disruption this month after the main train drivers’ union announced a new ban on overtime.
The Aslef union said members at 15 train companies would refuse to work overtime from July 17 to July 22, in an continuing dispute with the industry and the government over pay.
A similar Aslef ban in place this week has led to reduced timetables by several train operators which rely on drivers working overtime to run full services.
Mick Whelan, Aslef general secretary, said the union was prepared to continue the industrial action indefinitely.