The British Medical Association (BMA) is Britain's main doctors' union. Aneurin Bevan, the architect of the National Health Service, called it "a small body of politically poisoned people".
Until 2023 there had been only three national doctors' strikes in the NHS's 75-year history. A wave of strikes in England from 2023 to 2024 led to the rescheduling of half a million operations and appointments. The strikes were paused only when the government offered a 22% pay rise over two years.
The BMA's central demand is to restore doctors' real-terms pay to 2008 levels. By its own preferred measure, retail-price inflation, salaries are down by 21% even after the pay bump. Student debt is another grievance. Conditions in the NHS are grim: doctors describe long hours and lengthy commutes between hospitals and young families, with a shortage of specialty training posts making placements highly competitive. Many have moved to Australia.
In recent years self-styled "unashamed socialists" took over the BMA's main committees. The logo of Broad Left, a key faction, is a stethoscope shaped like a hammer and sickle. The BMA has become a platform for activists' causes: at its recent annual conference it passed several motions on the war in Gaza, including one to suspend ties with the Israeli Medical Association. It softened its critical stance on the Cass Review, an NHS-commissioned report that questioned the evidence base for youth-gender services, only after more than 1,000 members signed a letter in protest.
Public support for the strikes has fallen sharply. Coroners have linked previous strikes to at least five patient deaths.
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