By Michelle Roberts
Digital health editor
Patients can expect severe disruption to services as senior hospital doctors in England prepare to strike for 48 hours, from 07:00 Thursday, over pay, NHS England warns.
Thousands of planned appointments are being postponed.
Consultants will stop seeing many patients and will not be around to supervise the work of junior doctors.
They will provide so-called Christmas Day cover, meaning emergency care and a small amount of routine work.
The walkout is over the government’s “final offer” of a 6% rise – in line with pay-review body recommendations but far below what doctors, who say their pay has been eroded by inflation, want.
‘More challenging’
The longest junior-doctors’ walkout so far – across five days – ended on Tuesday. Their strike had caused tens of thousands of postponed appointments, England’s top doctor, Prof Sir Stephen Powis, said. And the consultants’ walkout was expected to have an even bigger impact.
The back-to-back action had left NHS services with almost no time to recover, Sir Stephen said.
“This could undoubtedly be the most severe impact we have ever seen in the NHS as a result of industrial action, with routine care virtually at a standstill for 48 hours,” he said.
“We are working closely with the British Medical Association [BMA] and the British Dental Association to ensure that emergency and urgent care is prioritised and patients remain safe – but in the eighth month of industrial action and with more than 600,000 appointments already affected, it’s becoming even more challenging to get services back on track after each round of action.”
On the strike days, people should use 999 in life-threatening emergencies and NHS 111 online for other health concerns. GP services and pharmacies can also be accessed in the normal way.
Those not told their appointments have been postponed should attend as normal.
Radiographers, who scan patients, plan to strike for 48 hours in some parts of England from 08:00 on 25 July.
‘Paid extra’
Unlike junior doctors at the start of their dispute, consultants are not asking for full pay restoration in one go. Instead, they want the government to start giving pay rises that at least match inflation, currently just above 11%.
NHS consultants earn more than £126,000 a year, on average, including extra pay for additional hours and performance. They can also be paid extra for private work.
But their pay has fallen 27% since 2008, once the Retail Price Index (RPI) measure of inflation is taken into account.
Once changes to tax and pension contributions are factored in, the shortfall is 35%, the BMA says.
But the government says it has acted on the BMA’s request for pension reform, increasing the tax-free threshold on pensions contributions.
Consultants plan more industrial action, on 24 and 25 August, unless a pay deal is agreed.
‘Deeply disappointed’
Dr Vishal Sharma, who chairs the BMA consultants committee, said the strikes were “a last resort” and the union had “been left with no choice”.
He said: “The responsibility for this industrial action lies squarely at the door of the government. It still does not need to go ahead.
“We are deeply disappointed that since our ballot result, in which 86% of consultants voted to strike, we have not had a single meeting with the secretary of state and that the prime minister has now apparently closed the door to negotiation, when negotiation is the only route out of this dispute.
“Patient safety is an absolute priority for consultants, which is why we gave six weeks’ notice of these strike dates.”
Clear processes were in place to help safeguard patient care during the strike, Dr Vishal Sharma added.
‘Patient harm’
But the prime minister’s official spokesman implored consultants “to be clear-eyed about the risk to patients”.
“They should be in no doubt that this does have the capacity to cause patient harm” and “does nothing to help us collectively cut waiting times”, he said.
The government says 6% is “very much in line” with private-sector rises.
The spokesman said: “These are highly paid individuals receiving a significant pay increase, so we would ask them again to think again.
“It is not too late to avoid the damage that this would do to patients and to the wider health service.”
Alongside strikes, hospitals have faced other challenges to return to full capacity since the Covid-19 pandemic, including:
- staffing shortages
- more emergency patients
- problems discharging patients because of the lack of community care
At the end of May, 7.47 million people were waiting to start routine hospital treatment – up from 7.42 million a month earlier and nearly three million more than before the pandemic – the highest number since the measure was introduced, in August 2007.
One in 20 has been waiting more than a year – although the NHS is close to eliminating waits of more than 18 months.
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