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The United Kingdom is grappling with what has been described as an “unprecedented wave of super flu,” a senior health official warned on Friday, as the health minister urged junior doctors to abandon a planned five-day strike in the run-up to Christmas.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the National Health Service (NHS) was in an “incredibly precarious situation” due to a sharp rise in flu cases, calling the current pressures “a challenge unlike any seen since the pandemic”.
Figures released by the NHS on Thursday showed flu infections at record levels for this point in the year.
Hospital admissions linked to flu jumped by 55 per cent in a single week, with an average of 2,660 patients receiving in-patient care each day over the same period.
NHS National Medical Director Meghana Pandit warned that the combination of soaring demand and the looming junior doctors’ strike meant the health service was facing “a worst-case scenario for this time of year”.
Streeting warned that hospital admissions could triple before the seasonal peak and described the current state of services as “inexcusable”.
Writing in The Times, he made a direct appeal for junior doctors to accept the government’s latest offer to prevent further disruption.
The performance of the NHS remains one of Britain’s most politically sensitive issues, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government under mounting pressure to cut waiting lists.
If it proceeds, the junior doctors’ walkout scheduled for Wednesday will mark the 14th strike since March 2023. Successive strikes by both junior doctors and consultants have hampered efforts to reduce the backlog of patients awaiting treatment.
Junior doctors, who are all medics below consultant grade, are locked in a longstanding dispute with the government over pay and limited training opportunities.
Streeting has agreed to give priority for training posts to UK-trained doctors and promised to expand the number of available places.
However, he has maintained that ministers “cannot and will not move on pay”, arguing that junior doctors have already received a 28.9 per cent rise over three years—described as the most generous increase in the public sector.
The British Medical Association, representing junior doctors, continues to push for an additional 26 per cent, which it says is necessary to restore earnings after years of below-inflation settlements.
The union is surveying members on the government’s revised offer, with the consultation due to close on Monday.
