Doctors strikes this week will cause disruption “unlike anything before”, according to one senior NHS official.
Consultant members of the British Medical Association began a two-day walk out yesterday (19 September), and junior doctors from the BMA and the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association (HCSA) will join them today (20 September), followed by two further days of action on Thursday and Friday.
Deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said: “This week’s industrial action, including a joint walkout by consultants and junior doctors for the first time, is likely to cause disruption to patient care unlike anything we’ve seen before.
“The continuing dispute – and the absence of meaningful dialogue between the two sides – is worrying for patients, demoralising for staff, and damaging for the NHS.”
Joint doctors strikes
Junior doctors and consultants to strike together
In August, NHS England published data showing the cumulative total of acute rescheduled inpatient and outpatient appointments since NHS industrial action began is 839,327.
Both unions have agreed to provide “Christmas Day” levels of cover during the strikes.
The BMA consultants committee has written to the prime minister and health secretary to outline what they need to bring strikes to an end. The union wants to see a “credible” offer it can put to its members, and said it would not cancel strikes to simply enter into talks.
In the letter, committee chair Dr Vishal Sharma writes: “we are simply asking for fairness and are demanding an end to real terms pay cuts and a fair mechanism for this pay loss to be corrected. We are seeking a pay package for 2023-24 above the level of RPI inflation for the 12 months until April 2023 (the date at which the award applies) that ensures our pay is not eroded further. This is not dissimilar to the settlement in Scotland for junior doctors and demonstrates that this is deliverable.”
Junior doctors and consultants will also coordinate their strike action between 2 October and 4 October, coinciding with the Conservative Party conference.
The reballot of junior doctors found an overwhelming majority in favour of further strikes, and the strike mandate has been extended to February 2024.
The BMA is seeking a 35% “pay restoration” for what it claims are 15 years of below-inflation pay rises. So far the government has imposed a 6% pay settlement with a £1,250 uplift for junior doctors.
Last week the union hit out at claims from the prime minister Rishi Sunak that strike action had been the cause of a significant increase in NHS waiting lists to more than 7.5 million patients.
Professor Philip Banfield, chair of the BMA Council, called this a “cheap shot”.
He said: “In 2013 there were around two and a half million people on the waiting list and no strikes; just before the pandemic in 2020, that figure was in excess of 4 million, and again no strikes. After the pandemic, when doctors had given their all, it had shot up to over six and a half million, and no doctors were on strike.
“The truth is that successive Conservative governments have done little to bring the waiting list under control, done little to alleviate the pain, discomfort and lack of safe care for patients and although the strike action will have added to that disruption and the waiting lists, that increase is a drop in the ocean when you look at the figures and rate of increase overall.
“That is not to negate the impact on any patient who is having to wait, but the vast majority are on that waiting list due to government neglect of our health and social care services, not doctors striking.”
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