Around half of Britons support junior doctors strikes as 3 in 5 believe government doing a bad job at negotiating with unions

• Around half (52%) of Britons support junior doctors going on strike (+6 ppts since May 2024)
• 3 in 5 (60%) believe Rishi Sunak’s government is doing a bad job at negotiating with trade unions – the highest proportion since he became Prime Minister

With junior doctors beginning strike action the week before a general election and in the midst of a heatwave in the UK, new polling from Ipsos has found that around half of Britons (52%) support them taking strike action (+6 ppts since May). When asked which public sector workers they support or oppose going on strike, junior doctors rank third, behind nurses (60%) and ambulance workers (58%).

When asked who they have sympathy for, the public are most likely to say NHS patients (86%). However, 3 in 5 (60%) say they have sympathy for junior doctors. Around half (55%) believe that workers have too little power in Britain today more broadly.

Who is to blame? 

• 6 in 10 (60%) Britons believe that the current Conservative government, led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, is doing a bad job of negotiating with trade unions and preventing public sector strikes. This is up 6ppts from figures reported in May.   
• However, there continues to be a split on whether a hypothetical Labour government led by Keir Starmer would do a better job. 39% believe it would do a better job (+4ppts), 33% believe it would make no difference (-1ppt), and 18% believe it would be worse (-2 ppts). 
• When asked whether the government or junior doctors are more to blame for the ongoing dispute lasting so long, half of Britons (50%) say the government. 26% say they are equally at fault, and 16% say the junior doctors are more to blame. 

Commenting on the findings, Gideon Skinner, Senior UK Director of Politics at Ipsos, said:

With junior doctors going on strike just before the election, our latest data shows that around half (52%) of Britons would support them taking action, with around 3 in 10 (31%) opposed - but with clear differences by political party support. When asked who is to blame for the length of the dispute, public opinion is split - half blame the government, 1 in 6 junior doctors, while a quarter attribute blame to both sides.

Nevertheless the public's greatest sympathy is for patients, and with the NHS consistently ranking at the top of the issues that matter most to voters this election, whoever enters Number 10 next week will want to demonstrate that they have a clear plan of action for resolving this and other critical issues facing the health service

Technical note
Ipsos interviewed a representative sample of 1,090 adults aged 18-75 across Great Britain. Polling was conducted online between 12-13 June 2024. Data are weighted to match the profile of the population. All polls are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error.