Lincolnshire junior doctors among thousands on mass walkout
There'll be picket lines outside hospitals across the East Midlands from 7am, from when only emergency care will be provided.
Last updated 13th Mar 2023
Hundreds of Lincolnshire junior doctors are joining the rest of the UK in a mass 72-hour walkout beginning today.
From 7am this morning, picket lines will spring up outside the region's hospitals and only emergency care will be provided.
Picket lines will be located at Hospitals including Lincoln, Boston, and Grimsby and Scunthorpe.
It comes ahead of a week of walkouts which will include one of the biggest days of industrial action for years.
The BMA said newly qualified medics earn £14.09 an hour, less than a barista in a coffee shop, adding that junior doctors in England will have suffered a 26% real-terms cut to their pay since 2008/09.
An advertising campaign launched by the trade union says: “Pret a Manger has announced it will pay up to £14.10 per hour. A junior doctor makes just £14.09. Thanks to this Government you can make more serving coffee than saving patients. This week junior doctors will take strike action so they are paid what they are worth.”
Dr Becky Bates, a first-year junior doctor in the Midlands, and located at Lincoln Hospital, said: “I thought by being a doctor I would be able to achieve financial independence, but instead I am still completely dependent on others.
“With tuition fee loans, credit cards and personal loans, I’ve left medical school with over £100,000 debt, and now my wages are not even enough to allow me to fix my car when something goes wrong.
“I come from a single-parent family. I don’t come from money, yet at 28 I am relying on my mother taking out credit card debt so I can meet these expenses. It’s humiliating for me and it’s not fair on her.
“As a junior doctor, I can be responsible for more than 400 patients overnight – assessing them, prescribing medication, having really difficult conversations with families about end-of-life care, and I am the first port of call should something go terribly wrong. Yet our skills and responsibilities are completely devalued.
“My situation is far from unique, and this is why me and the overwhelming majority of my colleagues have been forced to take to the picket line this week.”
The United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which covers Lincoln, and Boston Hospital, says:
"We expect the industrial action to have a significant impact on our workforce, and we have therefore taken the difficult decision to cancel a number of non-urgent appointments and operations. This is to ensure we have the right levels of staff so that we can provide the most urgent care for the people of Lincolnshire.
"We are contacting all our patients whose appointments we need to change and will work with you to re-book your appointments and operations for as soon as possible.
"If you have an appointment over the next few weeks and have not been told this has changed, it is important that you attend as usual.
"Our emergency departments remain open for those who need urgent and emergency care. Our maternity and antenatal services will also be open.
"Our emergency departments remain open for those who need urgent and emergency care.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters on his flight to the US: “It is very disappointing that the junior doctors’ union are not engaging with the Government.
“We are actually having constructive dialogue with other unions who have accepted our offer to come in and talk through it.
“As you have seen with rail… they have put an offer to their members, we are having constructive dialogue with the nurses’ unions and all the other healthcare unions and I would urge the junior doctors to follow suit, and accept the Government’s offer to come in and have talks, the other unions have done that and we are making progress.”
Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay said: “It is incredibly disappointing the British Medical Association (BMA) has declined my offer to enter formal pay negotiations on the condition strikes are paused.
“I hugely value the hard work of junior doctors and urge unions to come to the negotiating table and cancel strikes which risk patient safety and impact efforts to tackle the backlog.
"I want to find a fair settlement which recognises the crucial role of junior doctors and the wider economic pressures facing the UK.
“I’ve been having constructive and meaningful talks with unions representing nurses, ambulance workers and other non-medical staff, which have agreed to pause strike action, and negotiations will continue this week.
“We have been working closely with NHS England on contingency plans to help protect patient safety during strikes, prioritising emergency, urgent and critical care – but there will inevitably be some disruption for patients.”
NHS leaders have said they are very worried that the walkout by junior doctors will take disruption caused by recent strikes to the next level, posing a risk to patient safety and setting back work to bear down on care backlogs.
Talks between the Government and other health unions will continue this week, holding out hope of a breakthrough in the long-running NHS pay dispute.