Talking, not striking, is the way to settle NHS disputes - Bill Carmichael

And the combined strike action is likely to lead to the cancellation of more than 300,000 appointments at a time when waiting lists are already at a record of 7.4 million.

Junior doctors will walk out from July 13 to 19, and there will be a brief respite before their senior colleagues go on strike on July 20 and 21, and as a result there is likely to be disruption to health care for an entire week.

The consultants’ union, the BMA, says they will provide what it calls “Christmas Day” cover, meaning emergency care will be provided.

But with hundreds of thousands of people denied planned appointments - some after waiting for many months to see a consultant - there is no doubt about the damaging impact of this industrial action.

To put it bluntly the action of doctors will cause pain, suffering and anxiety to the patients they are well paid to care for.

And it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that some patients could die as a result of delays to their treatment.

How does this square with the well-established medical principle of “primum non nocere”, often translated as “first, do no harm”, used in some versions of the Hippocratic Oath?

Striking doctors are certainly doing harm - deliberately and willfully.

Junior doctors are among the best paid staff in the public sector, and can expect to earn around £50,000 a year after three years on the job.

They have held a series of strikes in pursuit of a stonking 35 per cent salary increase - a ridiculous pay claim that makes them “look silly”, according to one doctor quoted by the BBC recently.

Once they become consultants - six to eight years after graduating from medical school, according to the BMA - they can expect to earn well in excess of £100,000 a year for the rest of their careers.

According to the Department of Health, consultants received a pay increase of 4.5 per cent last year, taking average earnings to £128,000 a year - that is in excess of £50,000 more than the Prime Minister’s salary.

In the spring budget this year the Chancellor even made changes to the taxes on pensions to benefit wealthy doctors - a move that was condemned by the Labour Party at the time as a “tax break for the richest one per cent”.

The BMA claims that consultants’ pay has fallen by 35 per cent since 2008, but at least part of this erosion is because income tax thresholds have been frozen and the introduction of the additional 45 per cent tax rate for higher earners.

In other words their pay has been hit by the high taxes imposed by a Conservative government. In short, the government is taxing the rich - isn’t that what progressives want?

The result of the vote on strike action by consultants was announced earlier this week and showed that 86 per cent backed the industrial action.

BMA consultants committee chair, Dr Vishal Sharma, said the vote showed how “furious” they were at being devalued by the government.

He told the BBC: “We are incredibly sorry for the anxiety and disruption that will happen.”

But clearly not sufficiently sorry to call off the strike.

No one denies medical staff deserve decent levels of pay. They work hard, ease suffering, help people live healthy and fulfilling lives, and the public was rightly grateful for their sterling efforts during the Covid pandemic.

But going on strike - thereby hurting the very people they are supposed to help - is not the answer.

The one bright spot for the NHS is the end of strike action by nurses. The Royal College of Nursing also announced the results of a ballot this week, and although 84 per cent of those who voted were in favour of more strike action, only 43 per cent of members voted, well below the 50 per cent turnout required under trade union legislation.

So the RCN will have to return to the negotiating table to broker the best pay deal for its members.

Surely that is the sensible course of action. Talking not striking. Doctors please take note.