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Doctors walkout as contract row goes on

That’s according to the York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which operates Scarborough and Bridlington Hospitals.

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JUNIOR doctors in North Devon are staging a 24-hours strike in protest of planned changes to working contracts.

Thousands of hospital operations and procedures have been affected by the walkout, which began at 8:00 a.m. local time (0800 GMT).

Across the country, up to 45,000 junior doctors were part of the industrial action, with nearly 4,000 operations and 17,500 outpatient appointments cancelled.

But in a statement, the hospital made clear that services for those who require urgent and emergency services will continue as usual.

A spokesman for the BMA said: “Since we asked Junior Doctors who would be covering emergency care to go into work today, it is hardly surprising that they have done so along with those who are not members of the BMA”.

The picket line attracted considerable support from Wiganers, with many people honking their vehicle horns and giving the strikers thumbs-up as they drove past the hospital.

Doctors say the government is making them work longer hours for less pay by cutting night, bank holiday and weekend pay, which will in turn put patients and staff at risk.

Andy Gibson, a newly qualified doctor, who was at Warwick Hospital today said: “It’s worth saying that we’ve not been on strike for 40 years, but this is such a big issue for us that we’ve had to take this action”.

The British Medical Association (BMA) is concerned about pay for weekend working, career progression and safeguards to protect doctors from being over-worked.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s office called on the union to return to the negotiating table.

“Because of that we chose to require trainee doctors allocated to ward work to attend Sandwell during today’s strike”.

This will be followed by two further spells of strike action, with a 48-hour stoppage and the provision of emergency care only from 8am on Tuesday January 26.

Dr Krauze said he was confident that an adequate, “if not a higher” standard of care would have been provided to patients due to full consultant cover.

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“It’s very hard to believe that junior doctors not being at their posts isn’t going to have a serious adverse effect on patients and patient safety”, he said.

Junior doctors&#039 strike leads to 4,000 operations being cancelled