{"id":41347,"date":"2026-04-04T23:16:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T23:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=41347"},"modified":"2026-04-04T23:16:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T23:16:15","slug":"nhs-to-overhaul-staffing-so-it-becomes-less-dependent-on-unreliable-striking-doctors-chief-executive-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=41347","title":{"rendered":"NHS to overhaul staffing so it becomes less dependent on ‘unreliable’ striking doctors, chief executive says"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The NHS<\/a> will overhaul frontline staffing so it becomes less dependent on \u2018unreliable\u2019 resident doctors, its chief executive has said.<\/p>\n

Sir Jim Mackey, head of NHS England, warned the service faces a \u2018long slog\u2019 of walkouts lasting another 12 months if the government fails to reach a pay deal imminently.<\/p>\n

The permanent shift in how the NHS deploys its workforce is likely to see it make greater use of other clinicians, such as nurses, pharmacists and paramedics.<\/p>\n

It follows a series of disruptive strikes by members of the British Medical Association and comes as it prepares to march resident doctors out on strike for six days from Tuesday in pursuit of a 26 per cent pay rise.<\/p>\n

The medics – previously known as junior doctors – currently have a six month strike mandate, which runs until August.<\/p>\n

But newly implemented laws championed by former Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner<\/a> mean any future ballot would give the union a mandate for a full year.<\/p>\n

Next week\u2019s walkout will be the 15th round of strikes by resident doctors in England since 2023 and is expected to cost the NHS more than \u00a3250million in lost activity and overtime payments to senior colleagues.<\/p>\n

Sir Jim told the Health Service Journal that NHS England is asking: \u2018How do you build [services] less reliant on a transient training workforce and more on a more blended clinical family?\u2019<\/p>\n

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Next week\u2019s walk out will be the 15th round of strikes by resident doctors in England since 2023.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

He said it is necessary to explore alternative service models \u2018if we continue to have a system that feels unreliable, [when] one of the key things the population needs from us is reliability\u2019.<\/p>\n

He indicated the organisation would get \u2018more active in this area\u2019 if it faced a \u2018long period of strikes\u2019 but stressed this was not meant \u2018as a threat to residents\u2019.<\/p>\n

The NHS England chief said some local leaders had told him services ran more smoothly during resident doctors\u2019 strikes, when consultants and other clinicians had filled in for them.<\/p>\n

And alternative ways of working that make less use of resident doctors would also better suit hospitals that had long struggled to recruit trainees.<\/p>\n

Sir Jim previously built a less resident doctor-reliant service at Northumbria Healthcare Foundation Trust, which he led for 20 years up to 2023.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that \u2018a pipeline of consultants\u2019 is needed but argued there are \u2018different service models that are less reliant [on trainees]\u2019 successfully operating in other countries.<\/p>\n

He was speaking on Tuesday before news broke that the BMA will also ballot senior doctors, including consultants, on their own strike action.<\/p>\n

Sir Keir Starmer has accused resident doctors of \u2018recklessly’ walking away from an offer that would have seen some earn more than \u00a3100,000 a year.<\/p>\n

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Sir Jim Mackey, head of NHS England, said the permanent shift will make greater use of other clinicians following a series of disruptive strikes by the medics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Last week the BMA\u2019s resident doctors\u2019 committee rejected an offer worth up to 7.1 per cent for this year without even putting it to members for a vote.<\/p>\n

The proposed deal would have taken their total pay rise over the past three years to 35 per cent.<\/p>\n

The \u2018hypocritical\u2019 union has said that inflation caused by the Iran war means they need a bigger rise despite offering its own staff an uplift of just 2.75 per cent.<\/p>\n

Health secretary Wes Streeting today wrote to Dr Jack Fletcher, chair of the BMA\u2019s resident doctors committee, describing the latest round of strikes as \u2018unnecessary and damaging\u2019.<\/p>\n

He added: \u2018Having rejected the deal that we had agreed with you and your officers, I had expected the BMA Resident Doctors Committee to at least come back with a counterproposal to end these strikes, given your stated commitment to reaching a negotiated settlement.<\/p>\n

\u2018You could not agree one.<\/p>\n

\u2018If members of your committee cannot reach an agreed position among themselves, it is hard to see how the Government will be able to reach an agreement with your committee.\u2019<\/p>\n

The Government scrapped plans to expand speciality doctor training places yesterday after the union failed to meet a 48 hour deadline set by the prime minister to call off the industrial action.<\/p>\n

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Dr Jack Fletcher, chair of the British Medical Association\u2019s resident doctors committee, said scrapping the extra training places is \u2018bad for doctors, and it\u2019s also bad for patients\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The move would have allowed more resident doctors to advance their careers by undertaking additional training to become specialists.<\/p>\n

But the Department of Health and Social Care said it would no longer be \u2018financially or operationally\u2019 possible to offer 1,000 more places this year as the NHS prepares to deal with the fallout from the strike.<\/p>\n

Mr Streeting accused the BMA in his letter of being \u2018delusional\u2019 for believing they could continue to take industrial action and reject the offer while also enjoying its benefits.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Resident doctors today said they would \u2018happily\u2019 meet with Mr Streeting over the long Easter weekend in bid to avoid next week\u2019s walkouts, but said there must be \u2018an improvement\u2019 on the deal.<\/p>\n

Mr Streeting said the pay offer meant that \u2018for the most experienced resident doctors, basic pay would have increased to \u00a377,348 and average earnings would have exceeded \u00a3100,000\u2019.<\/p>\n

First-year doctors fresh out of medical school would earn on average \u00a352,000 a year, \u00a312,000 more than three years ago.<\/p>\n

This is more than many NHS staff in other roles will earn at the peak of their career.<\/p>\n

Sir Keir said the offer was made after \u2018months of collaboration with the BMA\u2019 and their refusal to now accept will leave patients \u2018paying the price\u2019.<\/p>\n

He added: \u2018That is why walking away from this deal is the wrong decision. It is reckless.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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The NHS will overhaul frontline staffing so it becomes less dependent on \u2018unreliable\u2019 resident doctors, its chief executive has said. Sir Jim Mackey, head of NHS…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}