Wes Streeting has voiced fears about the NHS following the doctors’ walkout.

Wes Streeting has voiced fears about the lasting impact of the strikes (Image: Getty)

Wes Streeting has said he is worried about how the NHS will recover from the latest junior doctors’ strikes, as picketing staff return to work tomorrow (Monday). Junior doctors walked out last Wednesday after the government refused to give in to their latest pay rise demands, sparking fears about how the health service would cope amid the ongoing super flu outbreak.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has now said the NHS is “coping”, after warning he could not guarantee patient safety ahead of the strike. However, he warned he is now concerned about how the health service will recover after the recent setback. He said: “The period that worries me more is the post-strike period when we have to try and recover the service. That now falls at a time of year which is the NHS’s busiest.”

Doctors will return to work tomorrow (Image: Getty)

On Friday, he said he wanted to end the dispute and that “we will get around the table with them again in the new year”, but insisted he has a responsibility to all NHS staff.

“I don’t think that doctors are selfish and don’t care about nurses and other healthcare professionals, but the BMA’s position can be quite hardline and uncompromising.”

An average of 3,140 flu patients were in hospital each day last week, up 18% on the previous week and around 500 higher than the same week last year.

However, the UK Health Security Agency has said flu levels are “starting to stabilise”.

Mr Streeting has gone to war with the British Medical Association, the trade union representing striking junior doctors.

Ahead of the strike he blasted the BMA for “behaving like a cartel”, in an extraordinary deterioration of relations.

He told the union it is time to “get real” and accused them of “no longer [acting as] a professional voice for doctors”.

He added: “They are increasingly behaving in cartel-like behaviour, and they threaten not just the recovery of the NHS under this Government, they threaten the future of the NHS full stop and I think that is a morally reprehensible position.

“I’m frustrated to the point of actual fury about where we are in this round of strikes. I have so much sympathy for the issues they raise in terms of the conditions that members face at work… also their career prospects.”

The union had been demanding a 26% pay rise, on top of the 28.9% pay rise handed to them by Labour last year.

They claim that real-terms pay has fallen by 21% since 2008, however new research by FullFact found real-terms pay to have fallen by just 6%.

While Mr Streeting has won plaudits for refusing to give into the BMA’s demands, the Tories accused him of encouraging them with last year’s pay rise.

Stuart Andrew, the shadow Health Secretary, said: “We Conservatives repeatedly warned Labour that by giving inflation-busting pay rises last year they would set a dangerous precedent.

“And now we see the consequences of their capitulation, with more disruption, more demands and no end in sight.

“It doesn’t have to be this way – under a Conservative government we would ban doctors strikes and we’ll introduce minimum service levels across the NHS to safeguard public health and the public finances.”

More than 40% of the public now back the Tories’ proposed ban on doctors strikes, as anger at the profession grows.

A YouGov poll last Friday found that support for the BMA’s latest strike now stands at just 30%, with 58% saying they oppose the walkout.

Only 34% of voters said they agreed with the BMA that junior doctors are not paid enough, while 36% said they are paid about the right amount and 7% believed they are paid too much.

Last Friday Scottish resident doctors also voted to go on strike over pay for the first time.

92% of Scottish junior doctors voted in favour of the industrial action, and will now march out to the picket lines from Tuesday, January 13 to Saturday 17.