Doctors’ strikes have become commonplace over the past few years as they walk out over NHS pay, hours and jobs.
Resident doctors – formerly junior doctors – are now threatening to strike after Easter.
Sky News looks back at when they have walked out before and why.
Politics latest: Starmer issues ultimatum over doctors’ strikes
2016: The first all-out doctors’ strike since 1975 took place in January 2016 after then-Conservative health secretary Jeremy Hunt proposed a new contract for junior doctors – any doctor below consultant level – which would scrap standard overtime rates while increasing basic pay.
There were further walkouts that year and a revised contract was eventually imposed, ending the dispute.
2023: All was relatively calm, in terms of strike action, for seven years until 2023, when doctors carried out strikes every month for five months from March under Rishi Sunak‘s government.
They argued that their pay, in real terms, had fallen by 20-30% since 2008, with the BMA demanding “full pay restoration”.
Junior doctors strike in Manchester in 2023. Pic: PA
2024: January 2024 saw the longest strike in NHS history at the time – six days – over their pay erosion, and another in February.
After Mr Sunak called the general election, the BMA announced another full six-day walkout by junior doctors in June and July 2024.
After three months of talks, the BMA said Mr Sunak had “made no credible offer” to “restore pay lost over the last 15 years” and they were giving him a final chance to do so.
Labour won the general election in July, and the new government offered a 22% pay rise over two years, which junior doctors accepted two months later, ending the strikes.
Junior doctors were also renamed…
