Wes Streeting is to offer resident doctors a bigger pay rise than other NHS staff as part of a new package of measures to try to end their long-running dispute.

The health secretary also plans to guarantee resident doctors in England that hospitals will be fined if they do not give them good working conditions, such as rest areas and access to hot food.

Streeting is looking at making a series of improvements to previous offers he has made, which may persuade the British Medical Association (BMA) to call off its nearly three-year-long campaign of industrial action.

Senior figures in the NHS briefed on Streeting’s thinking are increasingly optimistic that the measures he is finalising may prove enough to break the deadlock before the third anniversary of the first doctors’ strike of the current dispute on 13 March 2023.

The health secretary hopes that by offering to significantly improve – but for resident doctors only – the NHS-wide 2.5% pay offer for 2026/27, which the government insisted last October was the most it could afford, it could finally bring the dispute to an end.

Sources with knowledge of talks Streeting has held recently with representatives of the BMA’s resident doctors committee say he is considering at least doubling the 2.5%. The doctors’ union condemned that figure as “indefensible” and “an insult” to doctors when the Department of Health and Social Care first proposed it in evidence to the NHS pay review body and doctors’ and dentists’ remuneration body.

The search for a resolution has become more urgent since the BMA announced on Monday that resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, had voted overwhelmingly to keep on striking for another six months in pursuit of their demands for a 26% pay rise over the next several years, along with more places for doctors to start training in their chosen medical speciality.

The five-day walkout resident doctors staged just before Christmas was their 14th strike since March 2023. Each of the three five-day stoppages they have held since Labour took power in July 2024 has cost the NHS an estimated £250m.

Streeting is also looking at introducing a system of financial penalties for hospitals that do not do enough to improve resident doctors’ working lives. That could lead to NHS trusts being fined if they do not give those medics access to rest areas and hot food during their shifts, including overnight – a longstanding complaint by the BMA.

He is also drawing up plans to address another major grievance among resident doctors, namely that those who do extra work outside their contracted hours should receive payment for that or time off in lieu.

Jim Mackey, NHS England’s chief executive, last year set out a 10-point plan for hospitals to improve resident doctors’ working lives. However, the BMA and Mackey are both frustrated that some NHS trusts have been slow to make enough progress on issues like access to rest and food, as well as payroll errors and management of doctors’ rotas.

In a sign that Streeting’s talks with the BMA appear hopeful, Dr Arjan Singh, the deputy chair of the union’s resident doctors committee, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Tuesday that it is unlikely to call further strikes in the near future, despite their new legal mandate to do so, because progress is being made.

“There is no intention to go on strike. It is a negotiating tool, but we’ve got no intention of actually using it.

“We can pull the trigger and go on strike whenever we want, but that’s not the aim of the game. The aim is to get good pay and good conditions, without strike action, hopefully,” he said.

Singh added: “We’ve been on strike 14 [or] 15 times, quite a lot, over the last two years. Ideally we can get this done without any further action.”

New polling on Wednesday showed that a majority of the public oppose strikes by resident doctors over their demands. YouGov found that 52% of people in Britain do not support walkouts – down from 53% in a similar survey in December – and that 38% do support them, a figure which has not changed.

YouGov asked 4,592 adults in Britain if they supported or opposed resident doctors going on strike over pay and job insecurity. The survey was undertaken on Tuesday, after the BMA’s ballot result.

The Department of Health and Social Care was contacted for comment.