NHS England said 78% of junior doctors participated on day one of the first all-out strike in history on Tuesday, April 26, which included emergency care.
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However, Will Sapwell, a junior doctor working at one of the psychiatric hospitals in Sheffield who was at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital’s picket line today, reassured patients that the strike will not affect their safety.
Mark Porter, the BMA chairman, accuses Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt of throwing “mud at the junior doctors of this country who have been providing weekend and night emergency cover since the NHS started”.
The British Medical Association has not ruled out staging a permanent junior doctors’ strike and mass resignation of trainees ahead of this week’s 48-hour walkout, which for the first time will include A&E units, in the dispute over new contracts.
Junior doctors make up a third of all of the UK’s qualified doctors, and the 48-hour stoppage is the third walk-out since health secretary Jeremey Hunt has said he would enforce the contracts regardless of doctors’ concerns.
Around 50 doctors picketed outside Royal Stoke University Hospital, with local feeling in support of the strike.
Dr Anne Rainsberry, national incident director for NHS England, said: “This is an unprecedented situation and staff across the NHS have made herculean efforts to ensure continued safe services for patients, which is always our top priority”.
“Junior doctors are out here today because we feel we have been backed into a corner, whereby we must protest the future of the NHS”.
Mr Hunt said that no “trade union has the right to veto a manifesto promise (seven-day NHS) voted for by the British people”.
Senior doctors will provide cover for junior doctors in emergency duties during the period of the strike.
“We’ll have to assess the situation once these two days of action have finished, and see what options are open to us, and what action, if any, we want to take next”.
He said: “Our consultants are all covering us, I don’t think I would be here if all of our consultants hadn’t stepped forward to support us”.
“It is felt that these contracts are unsafe for patients and unfair on doctors”.
“Patients with minor injuries or less serious conditions should access alternative health services where they will often receive care in a more effective and timely manner”.
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Junior doctors (roughly the equivalent of medical residents in the U.S.) have had intermittent work stoppages over the last few months, but until now they kept working in critical areas such as emergency, maternity and intensive care.
