NHS fears ‘significant’ disruption as junior doctors strike in England

A senior NHS leader has warned that patients will face “significant disruption” and thousands of cancelled appointments as junior doctors in England prepare to walk out for 72 hours in their long-running battle over pay. 

The British Medical Association has warned that doctors below consultant grade will strike for a minimum of three days each month throughout the summer if the government does not improve its offer of a 5 per cent salary rise. The doctors will start industrial action at 7am on Wednesday, their third strike since March.

But ministers have accused the union of refusing to move from its demand for a 35 per cent increase, which the junior doctors say is needed to compensate for 15 years of pay erosion.

The NHS has faced a wave of strike action since December with nurses, ambulance workers and junior doctors walking out.

Consultants are now balloting on whether to take their own industrial action with a result due soon after the vote closes on June 27. The Royal College of Nursing is also balloting in a bid to secure a new strike mandate after nurses rejected a government pay deal that was accepted by a majority of health unions and has now been implemented by the government.

Sir Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, told the Financial Times the strike would affect “patients and services across the country”. The health service would continue to give priority to emergency, critical and neonatal care, as well as maternity and trauma services. But this meant that thousands of appointments would again need to be postponed, he added.

As far as possible staff would “prioritise those who have waited the longest for elective care and cancer surgery”, rescheduling patients whose treatment was cancelled “as soon there is space and staff to do so”, he added. 

On the frontline, health leaders redoubled their calls for both sides in the dispute to find a way of resolving their differences.

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation that represents health organisations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, said both sides would “need to cede some ground if there is to be any hope of a resolution, and the NHS really needs to see one soon”.

Delays to planned “elective” care were what concerned managers most, Taylor said, “with patients potentially developing complications or their condition worsening as a result”. It also meant that the waiting list, currently at 7.4mn, was likely to increase and take longer to clear, he added.

Rishi Sunak, the UK prime minister, has made reducing waiting lists for treatment one of the yardsticks by which he expects his government to be judged when voters go to the polls, probably next year. That task has been complicated by the cancellation of an estimated 500,000-plus operations and appointments since the health service strikes began in December.

Taylor pointed to increasing strains within the health service caused by the strike action. “We’ve seen signs that more consultants are becoming reluctant to continue to provide cover unless they are paid the BMA rate card for overtime, which will have an impact on local budgets,” he said.

Vivek Trivedi and Robert Laurenson, co-chairs of the BMA junior doctors committee, said they had made clear from the start that talks with the government required “a recognition of the scale of our pay cuts over the last 15 years”. Their door was always open to talks “but the approach must be credible for them to be productive”, they added.

An ally of Steve Barclay, health and social care secretary, said he wanted constructive talks but the junior doctors would first need to pause their strike action and show a willingness to move from their “unaffordable” pay demand.