Last week’s junior doctor strike in England resulted in the cancellation of nearly 89,000 NHS appointments. Out of these, 86,300 were hospital check-ups and operations, while the remaining 1,500 were community and mental health appointments. This means that more than 1.2 million appointments have been affected since strikes began a year ago and next week, junior doctors will take part in a six-day walkout, marking the longest strike in the history of the NHS.
Talks between the British Medical Association (BMA) and the government fell apart earlier this month, leading to the upcoming walkout. NHS England medical director Prof Sir Stephen Powis has expressed concerns over the six-day strike taking place at a time when it’s “one of the busiest times for the health service”. He also revealed that, “strike action is once again going to bring significant challenges to the NHS as it struggles to provide for patients amid severe disruption”.
Nearly half of NHS doctors are junior doctors, ranging from those just out of university to some with 10 years or more experience. Two-thirds of them are members of the BMA and they were joined by members of the much-smaller Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association union in the recent strikes. This meant that senior doctors had to be drafted from other services to staff emergency care and A&E units still had to close in some areas.
The BMA has expressed its disappointment with having to take strike action again and urged the government to make a new offer. Discussions of an offer of a pay rise averaging 3% were underway which would have been on top of the average of nearly 9% junior doctors received in April, but the BMA rejected the offer. Junior doctors had asked for an extra 35% to make up for below-inflation pay rises since 2008
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