Only 1 in 20 junior doctors support militant leaders’ latest plans for 5 day strike action
Industrial action will lead to half a million operations and four million appointments being cancelled
LESS than five per cent of junior doctors backed the five-day walkouts ordered by militant bosses, The Sun on Sunday can reveal.
Strike leaders now fear thousands of the medics will cross picket lines as they do not support the action.
The walkout, due to start next week, will cause 500,000 operations to be cancelled and four million appointments lost, hospitals association NHS Providers has said.
And sources have described the strikes as a step too far that will put patients’ lives at risk.
Some 37,770 of England’s 55,000 junior doctors are members of the British Medical Association, giving them a vote on industrial action.
But just 20 per cent (7,540) returned an August ballot on the fresh strikes set to begin on September 12.
And only 31.5 per cent (2,375) of those who did vote backed the full five-day walkouts.
That means the monthly strikes that will see medics abandon hospital departments including A&E, maternity and intensive care were supported by just 4.3 per cent of junior doctors.
Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns, a member of the Health Select Committee, last night said: “These revelations shows the strike lacks legitimacy and doesn’t have support from the majority of junior doctors.
“It appears the Junior Doctors Committee has been hijacked by those who want to rush it through for their own political reasons.”
A BMA source told The Sun on Sunday: “There is a lot less support for the industrial action than people realise and the number of doctors who have actually voted for it is shockingly low.
“There now seems to be a realisation that the five-day strike is a step too far and thousands of junior doctors are saying they’re going to break the picket line to work.
“Many just don’t feel the BMA is actually representing them and it’s all been hijacked by people with a political agenda. The Junior Doctors Committee is in a real panic about how to persuade people to actually strike.”
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The minutes of a meeting where the walkouts were agreed show members of the JDC acknowledge the response rate “will not be considered particularly strong”.
The report also shows the committee, led by left-winger Ellen McCourt, 32, is aware of risks to patients and highlights fears that medics will not back the action.
It states: “Escalated industrial action will clearly have a regrett-able impact on patient care.
“Although there were no incidents of patients coming to harm directly as a result of the previous phases of full withdrawal of juniors’ labour, the risk of such an incident occurring increases considerably.
“The impact of repeated cancellation of procedures on their patients may lead consultants to oppose the action on ethical grounds.”
Junior doctors have already staged one and two-day strikes this year in their dispute over contracts.
The JDC gave members various options in a secret survey.
But it decided on a five-day strike each month until the end of the year even though the option was backed by only 31.5 per cent.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has warned the walkouts will be “devastating”.
Action good for the NHS, says militant
A militant junior doctor has boasted that NHS strike action should be seen as "positive".
Yannis Gourtsoyannis said he was "proud" of the BMA's handling of the industrial action.
In a YouTube clip of a People's Assembly rally in February, he called it "the single most positive thing that has occurred in NHS politics over the last few decades".
He said Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt was a "dead man walking".
Mr Gourtsoyannis was part of a team Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell invited to advise Labour on the NHS.