Junior doctor strikes could mean year long hospital delays and 4million cancelled appointments, warn health bosses
Those whose operations and appointments are put off 'may be returned to the back of lengthening queues'
SOME patients could be forced to wait a year for treatment as a result of strikes by junior doctors, it was claimed yesterday.
Those whose operations and appointments are put off may be returned to the back of lengthening queues, insiders say.
Hospital bosses said four million appointments may be cancelled and 500,000 operations postponed, four times previous estimates.
The leader of the body that represents health chiefs described the situation as extremely worrying. Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, also warned that the industrial action will unleash a “completely unprecedented scale of disruption”.
Junior doctors will stage walkouts, including from A&E and maternity units, for five days a month until the end of the year.
Senior colleagues have condemned the move as “disproportionate” and urged them to reconsider.
The first of the strikes, sparked by a row over a new contract and pay, starts on September 12 and will run for five days between 8am and 5pm.
Mr Hopson said: “It is the shortest time we’ve ever had to prepare and then we’re talking about four sets of five days of strikes.
“That’s equivalent to half a million cancelled operations and four million lost outpatient appointments, so what we’re talking about is a completely unprecedented scale of disruption and negative impact on patients.”
He said: “Less than 40 per cent of junior doctors supported rejection of an agreement strongly endorsed by their own representatives.
“None have voted in favour of four sets of five-day strikes, by far the most disruptive industrial action in NHS history.”
NHS Providers called on doctors’ union the British Medical Association to “reconsider their proposed strikes for the sake of patients”.
The planned walkouts were also criticised by The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, which represents more than 20 respected medical professional bodies.
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It said: “We know there are genuine concerns about the contract and working arrangements, but we do not consider the proposed strikes are proportionate.
“Five days of strike action, particularly at such short notice, will cause real problems for patients, the service and the profession.”
The Patients Association said the strikes move had triggered apprehension among the public. Chief executive Katherine Murphy said: “From a patient’s point of view it is catastrophic news. The scale of the industrial action is unforgivable.
“The public have the greatest sympathy for the medical profession and understand the difficult job that they do, but this may take a step too far and could erode the public confidence and trust.”
Nigel Edwards, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust health think tank, said there had been a quite obvious shift in the opinion of medical leaders in relation to the walkouts.
His comments followed reports that the BMA is split over the strike decision.
A leaked report from the BMA showed just a third of junior doctors are in favour of further strikes.
Prime Minister Theresa May has accused the BMA of playing politics.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced in July that he would impose a new contract after junior doctors rejected a deal thrashed out between the union and the Government.
It followed stoppages between January and April. Doctors have expressed fears about patient safety under the new contract.
But leaked messages between members of their committee show they are concerned about pay.
Dr Ellen McCourt, chair of the BMA’s junior doctors’ committee, said: “We have a simple ask of the Government: stop the imposition.
“If it agrees to do this, junior docjuniortors will call off industrial action.”
The Department of Health said: “The BMA must be the first union in history to call for strike action against a deal they negotiated and said was a good one.”
By Toni Saad, medical student at Cardiff University
THIS level of industrial action is without precedent in the history of the NHS.
I will soon be employed as a junior doctor under the terms of the contract, but the decision to strike is scandalous.
Early in this row, it was possible to sympathise with junior doctors’ discontent about having a contract imposed on them.
Now it has become harder and harder to know what it will take to please them. The contract they were offered was a good deal. Even the BMA said so.
Yet for some, it wasn’t good enough. Junior doctors, like other staff in the NHS, are public servants, employed by the state to serve the nation. Whether they like it or not, public servants sometimes get told what to do.
It is an inevitable part of state-funded health care.
So unless junior doctors are willing to scrap or seriously reform the NHS they must stop these organised tantrums.
The public and the Government have a stake in the NHS and its finances, which give them both a right to influence its running.
And these new plans confirm the hypocrisy of the first strikes.
These were carried out, it was emphasised, for patient safety. But abandoning patients seems a perverse way of improving safety.
And these new five-day walkouts prove that concern for patient safety is only a pretext.
If these embittered doctors don’t snap out of it soon, patients, the NHS and the medical profession will be damaged.
They must come to their senses as soon as possible.
Copyright The Spectator www.spectator.co.uk