Mixed feelings over the 35 per cent pay increase called for by junior doctors

The mixed feeling included calls for the two sides to get round the table and talk.

There is deadlock between the government and the junior doctors, who have called for the 35 per cent pay increase and have been striking this week.

Downing Street has told the British Medical Association there will be no talks until the figure is lowered.

Bethany Price, who was enjoying lunch in Wem's Warbling Tit bistro and restaurant, on Wednesday, said she had many family members working in the NHS.

"They work so incredibly hard and did so throughout Covid. Everyone in the NHS is under-rated and the NHS needs more funding," she said.

However Philip and Deidre Moyse said asking for a 35 per cent pay rise was just not realistic and said they could not support the strikes.

Mr Moyse said he had been receiving NHS treatment for some time and said he could not fault doctors and all the staff.

"But I just don't think that the junior doctors should be risking lives by striking. How can they feel that 35 per cent is a realistic figure," he said.

"Where do they think that the money would come from."

Mrs Moyse said: "There must be better ways to of doing this, - if the pay increase was more realistic maybe it would be considered. They have taken the Hippocratic oath so why are they striking."

Wem shopkeeper and business owner, Dennis Price, said he was extremely grateful for the hard work of the doctors.

"But they have to get around the table and talk," he said.

"We have strikes in so many industries, rail workers, teachers and now doctors. All this is at a time when people in the private sector including small businesses like myself are struggling to keep our heads above water.

"I am so very grateful to all my customers in and around Wem who continue to support me in such difficult times, but things are really hard for people like myself and to see these calls for such high pay increases is difficult."

A former worker in the NHS, Bolton Massingham has also recently been a patient, having had to have heart surgery.

"While I have sympathy with the doctors, I also have sympathy with the people who need their services and who are being affected by the strikes. People are having operations cancelled," he said.

Another patient, Steve Latham said that while he thought doctors did a good job and worked hard, whether they should receive a pay increase depended on what they were asking for.