Richard Fuller: How a Conservative government end the scourge of NHS strikes

Richard Fuller is Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

These latest doctors’ strikes are a tragedy. A once-proud profession has allowed itself to be marched into battle by the cold hands of union politics. The BMA, bloated and belligerent, no longer speaks for the duty of the ward but the loud grievance of the picket. They speak not for the sick, but for the strikers, regardless of the validity of any cause.

Meanwhile, the NHS wheezes under the weight, appointments vanish and waiting lists stretch. The nation watches as one of its most significant institutions is held hostage.

The ongoing strikes started with last summer’s surrender. Labour handed junior doctors a 22 per cent pay rise: their deal has no exchange for reform to help taxpayers nor was it tied to improving outcomes to help patients. It was one of the largest public sector pay deals in history. A deal of desperation, sealed with our taxes. But the peace Labour naively hoped for but failed to plan for never came, because the BMA never wanted compromise, it is only out for itself.

So, it has been little surprise they are back demanding even more. The tragedy is that the broad package of pay, conditions of work and administrative burdens may well benefit from an update to fit with modern times.

But the BMA has made clear it will not stop, pushing this system to breaking point. Its latest round of strikes threatens to put patients at risk, increase waiting lists, and cost the public purse millions. Estimates suggest that the strikes are set to cost this country £367 million over 2025 alone. This is the cost of Labour’s cowardice, and patients are left paying the price.

Under Labour, the NHS doesn’t belong to the people who fund it, or the people who use it, it belongs to the people who threaten it. Labour are handing the NHS over, brick by brick, shift by shift, to the union barons who break it and bill you for the damage.

Every strike leaves patients on the waiting list for longer. And as people wait longer and longer as the disruption grows, they are held back from their full potential more and more. Patients signed off sick because their operations are cancelled. Patients not in work waiting for treatment. Vacancies growing, businesses struggling, the welfare bill spiralling further out of control.

And all the while NHS trusts are forced to shell out more of the taxpayers’ money to fill the gaps left behind with expensive locum and agency cover, hurting their budgets and eating away precious funds that should be used for innovation and improvement. The disruption that starts in the NHS grows and builds, dragging our country’s whole economy down with it.

Yes, patients are put at risk by this strikes, and that is the gravest of our concerns but it does not stop there. Our public finances, and our taxpayers, simply cannot afford being handed the bill every time these disruption-first activists walk out.

The NHS was meant to be a service, a pact between state and citizen that said, whatever else happened, however much you earned, if you got sick, you would be treated. But today, that deal is being torn up in broad daylight.

That is why the Conservative Party is today drawing a hard, unflinching line. We will bring forward new legislation to end this era of rolling NHS strikes. Under a Conservative government, doctors will no longer be able to strike. Just as we do not allow police officers or soldiers to abandon their posts, we will not allow those entrusted with life itself to walk out on it.

We will also end the scandal of facility time. No more taxpayer-funded hours spent organising strikes against the very service they are paid to protect. We will also legislate for minimum service levels. Legal guarantees that ambulances arrive, that A&Es stay open no matter what.

These changes would bring the UK in line with other nations across the world. They are acts of national and economic self-defence.

The Labour Party bears responsibility for the chaos that we are now seeing. Labour is tearing up the trade union laws that guarantee basic protection for patients; Labour is repealing the minimum service standards introduced by Conservative governments; and Labour has handed the pen to the strike barons and invited them to rewrite the rules of public service, signalling that strikes are to be encouraged and union activism will be rewarded.

We Conservatives funded the NHS with record levels of investment – but when we did we ensured that the money that was being provided came with the benefits the public expected, like IT upgrades, infrastructure and estate improvements, and productivity reforms. The fundamental importance of public sector reform is something Labour either cannot or willingly refuse to grasp.

When Sir Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting talk tough, let it be remembered that this crisis bears their name. Until they follow the lead of the Conservatives and take the action needed to protect the British public, the inertia will remain.

The Conservative Party does not pretend that reform will be easy, nor does it flinch from the reality that the system is under strain. That is why we are stepping in with clear, common-sense driven proposals – offering the government the way out this country needs. The cost of the NHS is growing and growing, and yet thanks to Labour’s no-strings-attached and no-reform approach services are not improving.

The Conservatives have always protected and championed a health service that is free at the point of use. But if we do not draw the line, then it will fall. We must take the difficult action needed to protect the NHS and safeguard its future. It is time Labour realised the same – and backed our plan.