RESIDENT doctors will strike for four days in a bid to reopen negotiations with the government, the British Medical Association (BMA) has said.

Medics are due to walk out from June 15 after the union’s first talks with new Health Secretary James Murray on Wednesday failed to reach a deal on pay and job protections.

Chairman of the BMA’s resident doctors’ committee, Dr Jack Fletcher, warned that doctors were being lost to other countries because they are not valued, as he urged the government to settle the dispute.

“In response to the industrial action, I don’t agree that it hasn’t worked previously,” he said.

“In November, we wrote to the Health Secretary to come to the table, he didn’t respond, and therefore we announced industrial action which brought him to the table. That led to a number of things, including an offer.

“We put that off to our members in December, that was rejected and then we then took industrial action to get a better offer.

“We’ve been in discussions in January, February, March, and those discussions were very constructive, however, they fundamentally didn’t address the problems that we have.”

Dr Fletcher also warned moving further away from doctor-led care would worsen productivity in the NHS.

He said: “For the last decade or so we have seen dropping productivity in our NHS, despite employing more and more people, and a move away from doctor-led care.

“If you’re employing more people whilst moving away from doctor-led care, and therefore becoming less productive, why on earth would you want to continue that in the future?

“Fundamentally, we think the NHS is less productive, and NHS England agrees with that.

“I actually think we need more doctors. Other OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] countries have higher numbers of doctors in their healthcare systems, and they see better waiting list times, reduced A&E waits and improved access to GPs.

“This is why I said we should go in that direction, rather than continuing down this journey that was started a decade ago.”

Mr Murray, who was appointed after the resignation of Wes Streeting earlier this month, said he wanted a “productive relationship” with the BMA, but the union’s demands for further pay increases were “unrealistic, unaffordable, and unsustainable.”