UK health services battle ‘super flu’ outbreak.

• Prime Minister Starmer denounces “reckless” plans by doctors to go on strike.
• Doctors’ strikes just before Christmas “shouldn’t happen”, says Starmer.
• Doctors are at loggerheads with the government over pay and a lack of training opportunities.

The UK is facing an “unprecedented wave of super flu”, a health chief warned, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday denounced “reckless” plans by doctors to go on a five-day strike next week.

“The ‘super flu’ outbreak sweeping the country means this is the NHS’s most precarious time since the pandemic,” Starmer wrote in The Guardian daily by referring to the NHS.

The resident doctors’ strikes just before Christmas “should not happen. They are reckless. They are putting the NHS and the patients who need it at serious risk,” he added.

NHS figures released on Thursday showed flu cases at a record level for the time of year.

The number of cases rose by 55% in a week, reaching an average of 2,660 patients in hospital each day last week.

“With record demand… and the looming strike of doctors, this unprecedented wave of super flu leaves the NHS facing the worst-case scenario for this season,” NHS National Medical Director Meghana Pandit said.

said Health Secretary Wes Streeting The Times newspaper the numbers could triple before peaking and said the situation in hospitals was already “unforgivable”.

The running of the NHS is a major political issue in Britain, with Starmer’s beleaguered Labor government under pressure to reduce waiting times.

The planned strike from Wednesday would be the 14th strike by doctors since March 2023, if it goes ahead.

Efforts to reduce patient waiting lists were partly affected by repeated industrial action by both resident doctors and consultants.

‘good deal’

Resident doctors – those below consultant level – are at loggerheads with the government over pay and a lack of training opportunities.

Streeting agreed with the doctors’ union’s demand that UK-educated doctors be given priority for training posts over overseas candidates.

The number of training places will also increase.

“A good deal is on the table,” Starmer wrote. “My message to doctors is simple — take it.”

But Streeting insisted the government “cannot and will not move on pay, especially not after a 28.9% pay rise over the past three years and the highest pay in the entire public sector over the past two”.

The British Medical Association, which represents resident doctors, is demanding an extra 26% which it says is needed to restore pay after years of below-inflation pay deals.

It is expected to put the government’s new deal to members in an online survey, which will close on Monday.