This latest six day strike by resident doctors in England will finish on 13 April.
This walkout is the fifteenth round of industrial action taken by the doctors union the British Medical Association (BMA). The BMA’s dispute with the government started in September 2024.
Here’s what we know.
How long is this strike?
The strike began at 7am on 7 April and will end at 6:59am on 13 April.
Who is on strike?
Some members of the BMA who are resident doctors are participating in the strike, though we don’t yet know how many are taking part.
Resident doctors, who were known previously as junior doctors, make up roughly half of the doctors who are working in the NHS in England. There are 79,000 resident doctors working across NHS England. Only some of them are on strike this week.
The term “resident doctors” covers doctors in their first training years all the way to specialised registrars who have not reached consultant level.
Why are resident doctors striking?
Pay is the main reason for the walkout. At the end of March 2026 the BMA rejected a government offer of a 3.5 per cent pay rise saying that it “at best, barely treads water”.
Resident doctors are paid between £38,831 and £73,992 depending on their level according to NHS Careers.
The BMA is arguing that pay, when inflation is taken into account, has gone down 21 per cent compared to 2008/09.
In order to calculate the 21 per cent figure the BMA is using the Retail Price Index (RPI), to measure inflation. Using RPI has proven controversial as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is now commonly accepted as the headline inflation measure.
The BMA says that it uses RPI because it is the measure used to calculate interest rates on student loans.
According to a 2025 analysis by the health thinktank the Nuffield Trust, the difference between RPI and CPI is stark – “resident doctor pay has fallen by 4.7per cent since 2008 against CPI, but has decreased by 17.9 per cent over the same period when using RPI.”
There is also anger from the BMA over the lack of specialist training places. At the end of 2025 the Health Secretary Wes Streeting offered to make 1,000 additional training places available in 2026 but withdrew that offer once the BMA made it clear that the strike was going ahead. The government said it had made it clear to the BMA that these training places were dependent upon the union not striking and the strikes meant it was “simply not operationally or financially possible to launch these posts in April in time to recruit for this year.”.
The union says that there are not enough training places to go around which is leading to long waiting lists for roles.
What will be affected?
According to an NHS briefing on the industrial action, hospitals are hoping to run on 95 per cent of normal activity.
The NHS says that it will be prioritising urgent elective surgery and cancer care with those waiting more than 62 days given priority.
The advice to patients is that unless you have been contacted to say that your appointment has been cancelled or rearranged, assume that it is going ahead.
999 and 111 services will not be affected, although NHS England is warning that patients with less urgent cases may have to wait longer at A&E.
What is the BMA saying?
Dr Jack Fletcher, the chair of the BMA’s Resident Doctors Committee said “We have been negotiating in good faith for weeks to try and end the simultaneous pay and jobs crises for resident doctors. Frustratingly we had been making good progress right up until the point, in the last two weeks, when the Government began to shift the goalposts.”
What is the government saying?
In an open letter to the BMA the Health Secretary said: “Given that our two teams have worked so closely on crafting this latest detailed proposal over the last few months, BMA’s choice is even more disappointing to me, as well as staff and patients in the NHS: opting for very disruptive industrial action timed to impact on the holiday plans many staff will have made during the Easter break.”