Why Wes Streeting is ‘optimistic’ he can win his battle with junior doctors

Wes Streeting has just emerged from his first set of talks with junior doctors over their pay, saying he is ‘optimistic’ that the government can bring the dispute to an end. The Health Secretary reiterated that ‘this government has inherited the worst set of economic circumstances since the Second World War’ but that ‘both sides have shown willingness to negotiate and we are determined to do the hard work required to find a way through’. They are meeting again next week.

The line about the economic backdrop is Streeting’s way of reminding doctors that their 35 pay rise demand is not something the Labour government is going to agree to, but he could well offer a promise of pay restoration to 2008 levels ‘when circumstances allow’.

Streeting also laid heavy emphasis on working conditions, saying:

‘I am angry about the way the junior doctors are treated in the NHS, and there is a lot we can do to change that.’

The centre of the industrial action is pay, but the driver for it is doctor morale – and this was also the case in the other strikes from nurses and consultants. So taking the side of the doctors against NHS management is Streeting’s way of getting them on side. It is also what he needs to do to get them on board with the reforms that he will want to do over the coming years.

The Department of Health and Social Care has pointed out that this was the first time a health secretary has met the junior doctor committee face-to-face since March. The British Medical Association had – rightly – suspected that neither Victoria Atkins nor her predecessor Steve Barclay had been given any leeway by Downing Street, and that negotiations were rather pointless.

Streeting is very clearly the person who has given Keir Starmer his vision on the health service – though he is, of course, beholden to whatever the Chancellor Rachel Reeves wants to do when it comes to pay. But he seems much more in control of his brief than the Tory ministers who came before him. And that makes a big difference in itself in these talks.