Is the junior doctors' Christmas strike the moment they lose public support?
Junior doctors will strike the week before Christmas, after Wes Streeting denied union requests for further discussions on pay. Will interrupting the festive season result in a loss of support for their cause?
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In brief…
- A junior doctors strike from 17 December 2025 is a “terrible time” for industrial action, The News Agents say, as hospitals work on discharging patients for Christmas.
- Junior doctor Callum Parr denies claims that the upcoming strike is a deliberate attempt to disrupt seasonal plans, and says that pay increases in recent years result in overall pay cuts, due to lack of increases in years prior.
- He says doctors are “crying out” for support, and says government offers “don’t touch the sides”.
What’s the story?
It’s going to be a bumpy Christmas for the NHS.
A new strike by junior doctors, their 14th since March 2023, has been announced and will last for five days, starting on December 17.
This has been condemned by senior spokespeople for the NHS, and health secretary Wes Streeting says the British Medical Association (BMA) is going against the wishes of its members.
Pay rises given to junior doctors in recent years – under Labour and Conservative governments – do not address a lack of increases in previous years, with junior doctors claiming they amount to real-life cuts across the long term.
Striking junior doctors have always been able to count on support from the public, but will walkouts across the UK during the festive season burn through that sense of goodwill?
“This is a terrible time to be conducting industrial action,” says Jon Sopel.
“It’s one of the busiest times for hospitals where they're trying to maximise the number of people they can discharge so that they can be at home for Christmas.”
But junior doctor Callum Parr tells The News Agents this is not the case.
“Specialist consultants can make those discharge decisions,” he says, speaking from a North London hospital, during his lunch break.
“We talk about spending time with loved ones, but doctors will be working on Christmas Day. Doctors sacrifice their time around Christmas to deliver the care that we always do for patients.”
Have doctors had a pay rise – or a pay cut?
The government says it will not discuss a new pay rise for junior doctors because they have already been given a nearly 30% pay rise over the past three years – which Parr, once again, disputes.
“I have £120,000 in student loans from medical school since I started full time work as a doctor,” Parr says.
“I’m working up to 72 hours a week, and my student loans have gone up by £7,000.”
His loan total, Parr says, has increased with inflation alongside the Retail Prices Index (RPI), and says it should apply to wages as well.
“If the government deemed that important for our student loans, then we deem it important for our pay,” he adds.
Doctors want pay re-evaluated as far back as 2008, and not simply considered on increases given over the past few years, which say they totals a net loss in pay, in real term.”
“When you look back at 2008, it was a time the NHS was the envy of the world, and I think it's important that we as doctors want to go back to that,” Parr says.
“We want to be delivering world class care, but to have that you need the staff.
“When you're looking at the future of the NHS, you are not going to retain doctors in the health service and have those consultants to bring down the waiting list if you don't pay those doctors fairly.”
What’s being offered by the government?
In summer 2025, Wes Streeting promised to recruit and deliver 1,000 new GPs per year – but Parr says this number “doesn't touch the sides” of the crisis facing the NHS.
He says strike action is the only thing Streeting will listen to, but after previous discussions and percentage pay increases, the health secretary has not agreed to meet with union members again.
Jon accuses junior doctors of sneaking in an extra strike before the end of the year, and before the BMA’s strike mandate ends in January.
Parr says he doesn’t see it that way at all.
“Our last strike ended on the 17th of November. We sent a letter to Wes Streeting that day inviting him to come back to the negotiating table. We gave him two weeks to have those conversations and see if we could reach a deal,” he adds.
“He didn't even send us a letter. We are ready and willing to negotiate.
“That is an active choice by the Secretary of State, not to make any improvement on the offer at all, or even just to have that conversation with us.”
As much as this situation is about pay, he also says junior doctors are “crying out” because of the seriousness of the NHS crisis.
“I worry every time that I come to work that I'm going to be doing the work of two doctors, because all it takes is for one of my colleagues to call in sick – and I don't begrudge them that – and I'm automatically doing the work of two doctors,” Parr says.
“What we're asking for is to have more doctors in these training places, that we have better staff rotas, and ultimately that is going to be better for patient care.”