NHS and health

Junior doctors remain strong

Junior doctors in the British Medical Association (BMA) struck again 24-28 February. As noted repeatedly in Solidarity , their campaign for “pay restoration” — a real-terms pay rise and a plan to restore pay to the real-terms level of 2008 — has shown energy and determination, at least by the standard of other unions involved in last year’s disputes. These five days will take their running total in this campaign to 39. The rest of the labour movement should be doing much more to support junior doctors’ fight, on the picket lines, through broader solidarity and through pressure on the Labour...

Join junior doctors’ pickets!

Junior doctors in England will strike again for five days from 24 to 28 February, the tenth round of strikes in their fight for “pay restoration” — a real-terms pay rise and clear timetable to restore the real value of their pay to its 2008 level. As Solidarity went to press, junior doctors in Wales were due to strike 21-24 February. Junior doctors in Northern Ireland will strike, for the first time in this dispute, 6-7 March. The British Medical Association (BMA) is reballoting its junior doctor members in England to extend its legal strike mandate under the anti-trade union laws for another...

Junior doctors strike 24-28 February

British Medical Association junior doctors in England fighting for “pay restoration” — a real-terms wage rise this year, and a clear plan to restore their pay to the real-terms level of 2008 — will strike again for five days this month, from the morning of Saturday 24 February to Wednesday 28 February. Other trade unionists, activists, and everyone who supports workers’ rights and the NHS should join their picket lines and demonstrations, and push for active solidarity from our unions and organisations. When their current legal mandate for strikes under the anti-trade-union laws expires at the...

Labour: tax rich to repair NHS!

A National Health Service dentist opening recently in Bristol had a queue down the street from early on its first day, and police warning many in the queue that they had no hope of getting in to sign on before the dentist shut. NHS waiting lists are still at a catastrophic level. More and more people who can scrape together a few thousand pounds are going to private hospitals for treatments like hip replacements because they would have to wait so long for the NHS. A new report from the Academy of Medical Sciences finds that long-term trends are now being reversed so that the health of children...

The longest strike in NHS history

In August 2023 over 400 health staff at Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (WUTH) began strikes in a dispute over pay. They have now had 50 days of strikes. Clinical support workers (CSWs) assist nursing staff on the wards. They’re employed across the trust’s sites at Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge hospitals on the Wirral. CSWs on the band 2 pay scale had routinely been undertaking clinical tasks like taking and monitoring blood, electrocardiogram (ECG) tests, and inserting cannulas. They should be on at least a band 3 salary, which is nearly £2,000 a year more than they...

More action in Northern Ireland pay fight

An estimated 150,000 workers took part in 24 hours strike in the North of Ireland on 18 January, including nurses, teachers, bus drivers, carers, cleaners and civil servants from 16 unions. Their core demand was aimed at the British government: to release the £0.6m for public sector pay uplifts which it is holding back as a gambit to pressure the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to end its boycott of Stormont. The party collapsed the Northern Ireland power-sharing regime in February 2022 in protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol. Around 10,000 joined a rally in Belfast, with...

Unions should follow Royal College

Healthcare staff should not report suspected illegal abortions to the police as prosecutions are never in the public interest, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has said. The health unions should join the Royal College in issuing advice to health workers against reporting abortions to the police. Dr Ranee Thakar, the College’s president, said “outdated and antiquated” abortion laws meant women were “left vulnerable to criminal investigation.” The comments have provoked a backlash from anti-choice groups and have intensified attention on decriminalisation of abortion...

Push back the Tories!

On 16 and 17 January, the Tories could lose Commons votes on their Bill trying to save their “send them to Rwanda” asylum policy. Even if they win, they have a battle to work the bIll, which tries to instruct courts Rwanda must be reckoned safe even if it is not. From 30 January, train drivers are striking. As yet, the government and the Train Operating Companies (TOCs) hesitate about deploying the new Minimum Service Law, which allows for the TOCs to issue “work notices” instructing drivers to turn up sufficiently for 40% service, and to get the whole strike ruled unlawful unless the union...

Will the Covid inquiry deliver political accountability?

“Leading world authority” in oncology Professor Karol Sikora, writing recently about the Covid Inquiry (in the Daily Telegraph and on Twitter/X), has called it “pro-lockdown” and a gigantic waste of money. Sikora is a vocal opponent of blanket pandemic lockdowns, arguing these are more harmful than the effects of Covid itself.

Neglect hits women's health

Every year, at least 40 million women are likely to experience a long-term health problem caused by childbirth, according to a new study published on 6 December.

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