As resident doctors prepare to return to the picket lines – the Tyneside medic now leading negotiations told ChronicleLive how his aim is – and always has been – “to do a deal”. Dr Jack Fletcher has risen through the ranks of the British Medical Association’s resident doctor committee, and now chairs the body. That means he’s the doctor sitting down with Health Secretary Wes Streeting and he’s the one making national headlines. Dr Fletcher told ChronicleLive why he had wanted the top job – he was elected in September – and how he had found a busy first few weeks in the job. Dr Fletcher – who works at James Cook University Hospital on Teesside but lives in Newcastle – continues to chair the northern regional resident doctors committee too. He explained that he’s “fiercely independent” and determined to improve pay and conditions for his colleagues. The acute medicine doctor has previously campaigned strongly on the lack of adequate training places for doctors who finish their foundation training – and this is something central to his platform. But “restoring pay” to levels last seen in 2008 remains a key aim too – and while he found early meetings with Health Secretary Wes Streeting had looked more positive, he said tangible progress was lacking, and a strike had been “forced”. Speaking to ChronicleLive, he explained why he had run for election – and what he hopes to achieve. “I have led the northern region since 2024 and was a local rep for a few years before that,” he said. “I ran for national election because of this failure of workforce planning that is essentially seeing thousands of doctors every year turned away from jobs in the NHS . “I was talking to those doctors about the fact they felt their only choice was either to leave the profession or leave the country and practise medicine overseas because of the lack of jobs in the NHS. We are in this bonkers situation where doctor can’t find jobs while at the same time waiting lists go up and patients can’t get appointments with GPs. Our ChronicleLive Daily newsletter is free. You can sign up to receive it here . It will keep you up to date with all the latest breaking news and top stories from the North East. “And in addition, we need to have a credible, reasonable path towards pay restoration. I wanted to put both jobs and pay firmly on the agenda. And I think there is a credible and reasonable path towards both of those things that would end industrial action for some years – if the Government was willing to meaningfully negotiate.” Meaningful negotiation is, Dr Fletcher said, something that has been lacking. Speaking a few days before Mr Streeting said the BMA had begun to act “cartel-like”, he said: “In one of my first meetings with the Secretary of State I said ‘I’m here to do a deal that works for doctors and for patients. But doctors faced 14 years of pay erosion – and now a jobs crisis. Something needs to happen.” Looking back to taking the role – during September – and sitting down with the minister for the first time, he said: “Initially I felt talks were generally constructive. However what has materialised is not credible on either front. On jobs, there were around 30,000 applicants for around 10,000 training places – and the solution offered is just another two thousands places over three years. “On pay, I was really clear that we can see an end to action on pay for a number of years [An offer] needs to show doctors they’re valued enough to keep them in the NHS.” Dr Fletcher emphasised that he is looking to make a “reasonable and credible” deal. He wants to see issues such as overtime – he explains on average doctors have to take on up eight hours of compulsory overtime each week without being paid accordingly – and definitions of unsocial working addressed. Another point would be to alter how pay works so that experience, rather than “arbitrary pay bands” determine salary – as this is something that unfairly hits women who have children early in their careers and contributes to a gender pay gap. He added: “We have put forward a number of credible options. But in return there’s been no willingness at all to discuss any of that.” Dr Fletcher also said that providing a bump of 2,000 training places would not make a dent in that issue, either. He went on to cite the heartbreaking case of a man – Keith Reynolds – whose death, a coroner said, highlighted the lack of a life-saving out-of-hours stroke service called mechanical thrombectomy . Dr Fletcher said the solution required funding more places for specialist training in radiology. He said: “If you have a stroke in the North East, some patients will be denied life-saving care because of a lack of staff. That’s because there are not enough radiology staff to deliver the service. Yet this year, 4,011 fully qualified doctors applied to be radiologists – and there were just 356 places. And that number [of places] has gone down since 2021. Some of my colleagues working in the North East right now have been turned away from radiology training programmes.” He also highlighted a recent fall in the number of anaesthetics training programme places – despite the fact that that is a role required for almost every surgical procedure. Dr Fletcher added: “You need those anaesthetists to deliver the waiting list reductions that patients want to see, we want to see and the Health Secretary wants to see.” Last month, figures published by NHS England revealed the waiting list for routine hospital treatment had risen for the third month in a row. Ahead of the strikes, Dr Fletcher re-iterated that his desire was not to go on strike. But he added: “We are just trying to come up with reasonable solutions to big problems. And we are not asking for everything overnight. We know there’s a budget coming up and I’m not a politician – I’m a doctor, and what I see every day are poorly patients unable to access care. “If the Government spent less time briefing the newspapers and more time negotiating a reasonable settlement then perhaps we can get doctors into employment, GP waiting times down, patients out of corridors and doctors feeling valued enough to stay in the NHS. The Health Secretary knows I’m happy to speak to him before or during the strikes to get to a deal.” On Wednesday Mr Streeting used media appearances to urge the BMA and reps like Dr Fletcher to return to the negotiating table. He said that since his Government had come to power, resident doctors had had a 28.9% pay rise. He said as part of his offer to resident doctors he had increased training places as well as make offers in areas such as exam fees. “I cannot think of a precedent in British trade union history where, after that level of pay rise, people have then chosen to walk out on strike,” he said. “And I’ve listened to what they’ve said in the media … and they are basically saying the same thing, which is, ‘We want more, we want it now, and we’re not interested in the choices and trade-offs that you have to contend with in government’.” ChronicleLive has created a dedicated WhatsApp community for breaking news and our biggest stories. You can join this WhatsApp community here . It will keep you up-to-date with news as it breaks and our top stories of the day sent directly to your phone.

Original source: gb