00:00I'm really disappointed that the BMA resident doctors committee have called a
00:03strike which is unnecessary and totally avoidable. I met with the BMA committee
00:09earlier today as a new health secretary and I made clear that to them that my
00:13door was open to working with them when it comes to job progression, when it comes
00:18to working conditions, training opportunities. What I did make clear to
00:21them though was that when it comes to pay the offer on the table is a really
00:25good one. The offer on the table is a 4.9% average increase this year rising to
00:30over 7% for some of the lowest paid and that's on top of an increase of 28.9%
00:35over the last three years and I think going any further than that people would
00:39agree is unaffordable and unrealistic but my door is open to working with them on
00:43the rest of the offer because I want to make sure we're supporting resident
00:46doctors, I want to make sure that we're not putting extra pressure on other NHS
00:50staff that would be the result of strike action, I want to make sure we're not
00:53costing the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds which would be the result of
00:57strike action and that we can work together to further improve the NHS
01:00after the first two years of this government where we've reduced waiting
01:03lists by over half a million people.
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