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Exclusive: Health Secretary Wes Streeting sends a warning to doctors after strike threats
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Jun 10, 2025
More doctors strikes are the 'last thing the NHS needs' and the BMA must call off threats, says the Health Secretary Wes Streeting. The Health Secretary's told LBC he has "loads of sympathy" with the British Medical Association - but warned the public won't back more walkouts after their 28 per cent pay hike last year. He's urged them to work with him and leave industrial action as a "last resort" - saying he's willing to meet and doesn't have his 'fingers in his ears'. It comes after he told them last weekend he wouldn't be able to afford their demands for higher pay this year. In England, resident doctors are getting an average pay hike of 5.4 per cent - including a £750 consolidated payment. But the British Medical Association are already threatening fresh walkouts, saying another 20 per cent is needed to get them back to the pay they were seeing in 2008. They're balloting on fresh industrial action, which runs until July 7, with more strikes possible from next year. In an interview with LBC, Mr Streeting also: - Said he was happy with what he's got from the Chancellor - insisting she will prioritise the NHS - Admits it's a bumpy time for NHS chiefs as they have to balance budgets and implement huge reforms
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0:00
Wes Streeting, Health Search G, thank you so much for joining me here on LBC Today
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You're announcing a massive expansion of the NHS app today. People are going to be able to get appointment reminders
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they're going to be able to get test results via the app
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It's a £50 million upgrade. How much is this going to save the NHS? What's new here
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£50 million fewer letters going in the post, thanks to what we're announcing today with the NHS app
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And how many of us have got those stories of the multiple letters that come through the letterbox, often about the same appointments, or worse still, the letter that arrives telling you about an appointment that was already passed because you didn't get it in time
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The fact is that our lives are now so orientated around the convenience of a touch of a button on our phones, doing our shopping online, organizing our night lives, organizing our professional lives, all at the touch of a button
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And yet with the NHS, it's very 20th century. So we're bringing the NHS into the 21st century, making the NHS app much more usable
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It's actually got more subscribers than Netflix. wouldn't it be amazing if the NHS app was if not as joyful almost as joyful to use as Netflix
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nearly okay and you've said before that you want this app to help end the 8am scramble for a
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doctor's appointment so to free up spaces for people that genuinely want to to still make an
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appointment reminder on the phone how much closer are we to ending the 8am scramble well I think
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there's a lot of things we're doing as a government that is absolutely moving us in that direction I
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I mean, when I came into government 10 months ago, I was shocked to find that there were qualified GPs
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who couldn't find a job at the same time as there are patients who can't get a GP appointment
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So we found the money to deploy what has actually turned out to be 1,500
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I promised 1,000, but we ended up doing 1,500 more GPs. Of course, there's more to do
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Things like the app is really important. some of the other technology stuff we're going to be doing in the nhs freeing up gps time as well
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so that they're not bogged down in red tape and bureaucracy all of these things are going to move
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us in the in the right direction and and people are beginning to feel that change i wouldn't
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overstate it yet like with lots of things i know that there will be lots of people listening who
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are thinking yeah but i'm not really feeling this change yet and of course it does take time and it
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takes time to reach everyone but by total coincidence just today my local surgery text
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me saying if you haven't already make sure you've downloaded the NHS app because we're going to be organizing our appointments through it
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And you were like mate I've already got it. Yeah I was like of course I have I'm the health secretary but also tell you what I was really
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reassured by is I thought great like it's really nice when you're making decisions in
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your office and then you are getting the benefits of it come through as a patient because sometimes you know in government you sit there you make announcements you committing to change things and you want to know that people are feeling it and so that for me is a little proof point in my case and the case of my surgery but hopefully
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others will be feeling that change too. And you're also announcing this week 500 new ambulances for
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emergency care hopes for paramedics to be able to access app data for patients at the touch of a
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button this is all great why is the NHS so stuck as you said in the 20th century why has it taken
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so long to be able to get these basic digital services out on our NHS? I think lots of reasons
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I mean one thing I'd say for the NHS and NHS leaders for some time now they have been operating
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with their hands tied behind their backs and I don't just say this to make a sort of party
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political point about our predecessors we're fed up with talking about them I think the country's
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fed up with hearing about them but you know when we asked Lord Darcy to look at the state of the
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NHS as we inherited it he said there's a 37 billion pound shortfall in capital investment
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in the NHS which isn't just bricks and mortar it's also some of the tech and often what our
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what happened was as the NHS was overspending and getting into deficits the first thing that
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were raided were the tech budgets so you're borrowing from the investment for tomorrow to
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pay for the deficits of today and that is why as well as all the investment we're putting in and
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the chancellor has prioritized the nhs in the budget i don't want to get ahead of her spending
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review but you know i think she will prioritize the nhs there too so it's a big national priority
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and you're happy with what you've got out of that of course i am because despite the the challenges
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facing the public finances we've got a chancellor who's looked at the state of the nhs and she's
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gone okay we're gonna have to make some choices that might always be popular and some of the tax
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decisions have not been popular but if people are seeing the impact of the change in the nhs i think
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people might go okay right fair enough we're seeing the difference but that's also why the reform of
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the nhs matters as well making sure that every penny that goes in is well spent and that's where
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the technology stuff really does come in because you know if you're spending 50 million pounds less
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on or if you've got 50 million fewer letters going in the the post for nhs appointments
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where you're freeing up all those costs of the paper and the postage
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that can then go to the front line. And it's why I've been doing so much reform of the NHS
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and trying to break the culture of deficits and overspending. It's not easy
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It's a bit bumpy for NHS leaders at the moment as I'm getting them back to balance and back to black
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But it's necessary to make sure that people know that when they're paying their taxes
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we're spending every penny as wisely as lots of people, lots of families of the country at the moment
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who are having to make some quite tight decisions about their own family finances. If we're going to take money off people to pay for the NHS
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it's my responsibility to make sure we're spending that money as wisely as people would have spent it themselves
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And you mentioned of course some NHS trusts still running up huge budget deficits Some of them are talking about some really major cuts like cuts of 12 in some NHS trusts Eating disorder programmes diabetes care
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rehab, palliative care. This isn't protecting the NHS, is it? This is not ring-fencing those
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departments that people think should be protected under NHS budgets, is it
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Well, I think two things are going on simultaneously, and I appreciate if you're
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trying to follow what's going on in the NHS it can be it can sort of be quite confusing because
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on one hand you know we are putting in significant extra investment 26 billion pounds in the last
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budget including the biggest capital investment in bricks and mortar and tech that the NHS has
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had since Labour was last in government so lots more money going into the NHS but at the same time
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we're trying to also cut through the waste the inefficiency the bureaucracy the duplication
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Now, as I'm doing that, I'm also doing something else that's quite brave for someone in my shoes to do, which is to accept that someone sat behind my desk in Whitehall in Westminster can't command and control a system as large, as complex as this
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I've got to trust frontline leaders to use their budgets as effectively and impactfully as possible
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so i know there's a and it's a bit bumpy at the moment because we're changing services we're
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reforming services we're slashing through bureaucracy and change can be disruptive but at the same time waiting lists are beginning to fall 200,000 more than 200,000 lower than when
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we came to office we've got 1500 more gps employed onto the front line who wouldn't have been there
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without labor's decisions and biggest uh allocation to hospices in a generation 100 million quid going
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in there to help them rebuild their buildings and put in place new IT and digital facilities
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I mean, the list goes on. And I just say to people, especially, you know, it's really
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important that given all the cynicism about politics, we report those things back and say
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to the public, this is what we're doing. But I also want people to know there isn't a hint
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of complacency about how much there still is to do. And I think, you know, we're nearly
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a year in now. It's actually not a huge amount of time, but it feels longer sometimes
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Been in nearly a year now and change has begun, but there's so much more still to come
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And you mentioned one of the things that you've got on your plate to do. The junior doctors, you've said last weekend you cannot offer them the pay rise that they want
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You're warning them that they will put at risk the progress that has been made so far in driving down those waiting lists
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What would the impact on the NHS be if they were to strike again? What is your message to them about why they need to come to the table
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Well, there's no doubt that strikes are the last thing the NHS need right now
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I think it's the last thing the resident doctors themselves need, certainly the last thing that patients need
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And I think what I'd say to, particularly to the resident doctors who might be listening
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because I think a lot of the public agree with what I've just said and will understand that
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but what I say to resident doctors and NHS staff who are listening is this if I had my fingers in my ears and I was saying get stuffed on pay and I don agree with you about the conditions you working in and I
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not interested, I'm never going to speak to you, I'd sort of understand strike action. But you've
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got in me and in this government a health secretary who in just 10 months has given you a 28.9
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average pay rise because I didn't just do my first year as health secretary. I had to sort out the
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last two of the previous government. 28.9%. You might not think that goes as far as you wanted
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but I think anyone listening would think I'd like a 28.9% pay rise. And I think to be fair to them
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well done. It's their achievement as much as mine. I think the other thing I'd say is when
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they talk about the conditions they're working in, their anxiety about their future career
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progression some of the challenges they've got around medical associates and uh you know some
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of the other conditions they're working in i've got loads of sympathy for what they're saying and
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i actually want to work with them i met with them twice last month alone i've offered to meet their
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entire committee and i'd say you've got in me someone who wants to work with you strike action
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should always be a last resort so i'd say to the bma if you're listening the government's changed
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The policies have changed for the better. You can see that. Your tactics need to change now
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Work with us. There's no need for strikes. One thing you're also looking at is the role of physician associates
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doctors fearing that their jobs are being taken, patients worried about them being treated by less qualified staff
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Are you looking at renaming them, as reports have said today? Well, I've seen the speculation about what Gillian Leng
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who's the extremely respected doctor who I've asked to lead a review of these medical associate roles
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I've seen speculation that's what she's going to recommend. But to be fair to Gillian Leng, I haven't seen her report
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She hasn't finalised her report. So I'm not going to make any judgements until I see what she recommends
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because I've asked her to do a serious job. She's taking it very seriously
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She's not got any pre-determinations or pre-conclusions. I asked her to go in it with a genuinely open mind and to follow the evidence and to give me her best advice
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So I'm waiting for that. But the reason I asked her to do this in the first place is while I've met some brilliant physician associates doing some interesting work
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I've also seen and heard concerns from other NHS staff, some patient concerns
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And I thought, there's enough in these concerns I'm hearing that I need to take a good look at this
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and make sure we're actually following the evidence and doing the right thing. And bluntly, if we're not, we will change course
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We will do things differently. We were elected on one word as a government, which is change
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And I'm determined to deliver and make sure it's changed for the better. So I'm waiting for Gillian Leng to report
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When she does, I'll look at her recommendations and then act. Secretary of State, West Reading, thank you so much for joining me on LBC
11:54
Thank you
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