United Kingdom (Commonwealth Union)_ For the first time in its history, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is likely to face a major disruption in healthcare services as hospital consultants and junior doctors are set to hold a coordinated strike.
Members of the British Medical Association (BMA) and Hospital consultants, across England began a 48-hour strike on Tuesday which will be joined by junior doctors amid an ongoing dispute over pay and working conditions.
Both consultants and junior doctors are expected to work on a “Christmas Day cover” basis on Wednesday for both spells of industrial action, meaning emergency care will continue to be provided.
The NHS warned of the huge pressure on its services by the coordinated action in a statement on Monday, reminding that the NHS has seen more than 885,000 inpatient and outpatient appointments rescheduled due to the strike actions this year.
Consultants in England will walk out for 48 hours from Tuesday and will be joined by their junior colleagues on Wednesday while Junior doctors will then continue their strike on Thursday and Friday.
Both consultants and junior doctors will then strike together on 2nd, 3rd and 4th October, which will coincide with the Conservative Party annual conference in Manchester.
Ahead of the strike action, NHS national medical director Professor Sir Stephen Powis said that the NHS has simply never seen this kind of industrial action in its history.
He added that this week’s first-ever joint action means almost all planned care will come to a stop, and hundreds of thousands of appointments will be postponed, which is incredibly difficult for patients and their families, posing an enormous challenge for colleagues across the NHS.
He said that people should still call 999 and use A&E as normal in emergency situations. Mr. Rishi Sunak commenced his premiership pledging to cut waiting lists, but ministers’ failure to resolve the dispute with junior medics and consultants has cast doubt on whether that promise can be achieved.
Figures released earlier this month revealed that the NHS waiting list in England reached a new record high with 7.7 million people which was around one in seven waiting for treatment.
Deputy chief executive of NHS Providers Saffron Cordery warned that strikes cannot become a new normal, hitting out at the lack of “meaningful dialogue” between the Government and medics and that it was likely to cause disruption to patient care unlike anything ever seen before.
Ms Cordery added that this dispute needs to be resolved fast, but there was a deep and growing frustration among trust leaders at the sheer lack of action to even start to break this deadlock and that strikes cannot be permitted to become business as usual for the NHS.
BMA junior doctors committee co-chair, Rob Laurenson, said in a video statement about the coordinated action, that they have no option but to “escalate” their action until the government shifts its position.
BMA consultants committee chair Vish Sharma, for his part said: “Industrial action can still be avoided by coming to the table for meaningful discussions and presenting us a credible offer.”
Consultants across England staged a two-day strike action on 24th – 25th August which followed a 5-day industrial action by junior doctors earlier in August. The NHS said later that tens of thousands of hospital appointments had been postponed in August.
Earlier, Steve Barclay, Health Secretary urged the union and doctors to end their action, saying the government’s 6% pay raise this year, on top of last year’s 4.5% increase, is the final offer.
However, the BMA, which called the offer “derisory,” said that this was an “insult to consultants.”
