A five-day strike by junior doctors will take place across England between 12-16 September due to the BMA’s ongoing dispute with the government over new contracts.
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Deepak Dwarakanath, medical director at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are now working through contingency plans to ensure we safely provide the right level of care to our patients”.
He added: “The first priority must be to protect patients from harm”.
We recognise their legitimate concerns on a range of issues and their right to negotiate any contractual changes. While most patients had greater trust in doctors than in government, “I think the public mood is probably shifting a little bit further away from the doctors now because it is not clear why the strikes are continuing when a deal was done at an earlier point”.
The BMA is calling for the government restart meaningful talks to come to an agreement over the new contract.BMA junior doctors’ committee chair Dr Ellen McCourt said: “Junior doctors still have serious concerns with the contract, particularly that it will fuel the current workforce crisis, and that it fails to treat all doctors fairly”.
But Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the BMA council, blamed the “continued reluctance” of Mr Hunt to do “anything other than impose a contract on junior doctors”.
The BMA said it will call off the strikes if the Government agrees to stop the imposition.
“Confidential papers drawn up by the BMA have suggested there could be five days of strikes each month for the rest of the year”, reports the BBC.
“That’s equivalent to half a million – 500,000 – 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; it’s extremely worrying”.
And he claimed that almost all Health Secretaries are unpopular -even the legendary NHS founder Nye Bevan. A 7-day NHS is simply impossible without more resources.
Junior doctors say it is not just about looking to be paid more for doing extra hours, it is about more money to pay for more medical staff who will have to cover the weekdays when staff have been moved over to increase weekend care.
A Department of Health spokesperson said in a statement: “As doctors’ representatives, the BMA should be putting patients first not playing politics in a way that will be immensely damaging for vulnerable patients”.
Mr Hunt said he thought a deal was agreed in May when the BMA put the proposal to its members.
“In my experience, from conversations that I’ve had with my patients, they are generally supportive of the junior doctors”.
“I therefore repeat my call to the Government to agree to an urgent cross-party process aimed at achieving a new settlement for the NHS and care”. We should be capable of better than this.
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“We anticipate that other doctors and healthcare staff will be working normally but we will, undoubtedly, be very busy”.
