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Lincolnshire hospitals prepare for five-day junior doctors’ strike
The dates were agreed in an urgent meeting of union leaders on Thursday.
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Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has called the move “devastating for the NHS” and “the worst strike in NHS history”.
The Government and the British Medical Association (BMA), the union representing the doctors, are now at loggerheads over Mr Hunt’s plans to impose new contracts on junior doctors which includes a seven-day working week.
The BMA said key concerns raised by junior doctors included how the contract will affect those working less than full time, a majority of whom are women, and the impact it will have on junior doctors working the most weekends.
Although it’s too early to say how local hospitals will be affected, some dozens of operations and hundreds of appointments were cancelled because of April’s 48-hour strike.
“The Tories talk about a seven-day NHS, but they are causing five-day strikes”, said Ms Abbott.
Mr Hunt said he was prepared to talk further with the BMA – but only if they called off the planned strikes.
“We have a simple ask of the government: stop the imposition”.
“It’s because the single unifying thread throughout every part of this dispute has been the insistence of the government on moving ahead without agreement”.
He said hospitals had only been given 12 days’ notice, “which is much less than we’ve ever had before”.
Support in the past has been strong in Salford for the junior doctors’ plight.
“We are not expecting to have to employ agency staff but will need to free up our Consultants to undertake those duties which are normally carried out by junior doctors, for example ward cover, to maintain safety”.
“Firstly, the junior doctors are wanting to protect themselves and secondly, it’s about the NHS and wider financial pressures it faces”.
Junior doctors in Salford and UK-wide will stage a total of 20 days of strikes between now and Christmas.
A spokesman for the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges previously said they are “disappointed” at the prospect of further sustained industrial unrest.
“They acknowledge that the imposition of a contract isn’t ideal and feel that the government and the BMA needs to reopen negotiations”.
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Ellen McCourt, the new chair of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, recently wrote to the organisation’s council seeking to “authorise a rolling programme of escalated industrial action beginning in September”.
He told the BBC: “The reason this dispute has become protracted is not because anybody on our side wanted it to be protracted”.
“We’re devastated that the government has not listened to junior doctors”, she said. A significant number of junior doctors, some 42 per cent, voted to accept the latest contract.
She also said her college had not supported the statement because members felt it was “unjust” to imply that junior doctors “do not put patient safety first and foremost”.
The Health Secretary says the two remaining issues are around pay: Saturday pay and automatic pay for part-time workers.
Prime Minister Theresa May has slammed the BMA union for “playing politics” after it announced the fresh wave of industrial action this week.
“None have voted in favour of four sets of five-day strikes – by far the most disruptive industrial action in NHS history”.
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“We shall be working hard to ensure that our plans minimise the impact on our patients, but we are very aware that any level of disruption can be inconvenient and that there will be an added level of anxiety amongst some of our patients because of the nature of the action”.