Thousands of junior doctors across England have joined the picket lines in front of major National Health Service hospitals in a two-day 8 am-5 pm strike.
It is the fifth walkout from hospitals since January this year by junior doctors although this time the strike will be total and will see a full withdrawal of junior doctors from all levels of duty – including from the Accidents and Emergency services.
The doctors are protesting new government contracts drawn up by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt that will be imposed on them from August this year.
The government’s new contract will introduce a “7-day NHS” in which there will be no out-of-hours pay on Saturday from 7 am to 5 pm. The British Medical Association — the trade union and professional body of doctors in the UK— says that the opposition by doctors to the contract not just about Saturday overtime, but on broader issues. Patient safety will be severely compromised if the same numbers of doctors are forced to do longer rotas. Mr. Hunt says he has offered a 13.5 per cent pay rise in the new contract; the BMA says this refers only to basic pay, and that other rates will be slashed.
In a statement today Chair of the BMA Dr. Mark Porter said that the junior doctors made a clear offer to Mr. Hunt of calling off the strike if the imposition of the contract is lifted. Striking junior doctors, he told Mr. Hunt, “reject your assertion that the only outstanding issue in dispute relates to Saturday pay.”
Rather, their demands relate to a set of “critical issues concerning work-life balance, excessive working hours, improvements in training and crucially, workforce and funding implications for seven day services is is the fifth and most far-reaching of the protests that junior doctors have participated in this year.”
Some 112,85 outpatient appointments and 12,711 non-emergency operations have been cancelled as rotas are rearranged to put emergency care first the BMA announced. Consultants and GP surgeries will not be affected.
Senior doctors will provide cover for junior doctors in emergency duties during the period of the strike.
A overwhelming majority of the 55,000 junior doctors were balloted, and of them 98 percent supported the strike.
The government rejected a cross-party compromise proposal to first trial the contracts in a small number of health trusts, in return for the doctors calling off the strike.
In a statement Dr Johann Malawana, BMA junior doctor committee chair regretted the disruption to patients but said that by refusing to come to the negotiation, the government is responsible.
“The government is refusing to get back around the table and is ploughing ahead with plans to impose a contract junior doctors have no confidence in and have roundly rejected,” he said, accusing it of “willfully ignoring the mounting chorus of concerns over its plans.”
