10th round of Junior Doctor Strikes in Salisbury beings today
It's in their continued row over pay with the Government
Junior Doctors in Wiltshire are taking a 10th round of strike action from Saturday morning (24th February), as their row over pay with the Government continues.
BMA members are walking out for five days from 7.00am today, until 11:59pm on Wednesday (28th February), after further talks with the Government broke down.
As a result, hospital's across the county are braced for significant disruption, with the message being for us only to visit if we really need to.
In a statement, Salisbury District Hospital say we should only visit the hospital or call 999 in an emergency or a life-threatening situation.
"Salisbury District Hospital will be very busy, but we will continue to focus on providing safe patient care. Our teams will continue to ensure patient safety and maintain critical services.
"During this period please consider alternatives such as your GP, local pharmacy, and out of hours, the Salisbury Walk-in Centre. If you are unsure about whether you should go to hospital you can visit NHS 111 online or by telephone.
"Patients should only call 999 or attend A&E if it is an urgent or life-threatening health emergency.
"Regardless of the industrial action taking place, it is really important that patients who need urgent medical care continue to come forward as normal, especially in emergency and life-threatening cases and our services will be there for these people.
"If people attend our A&E Department with a minor injury or concern please be patient as the wait may be longer than usual as critical cases will be prioritised.
"If you have an appointment at the hospital and we have not contacted you directly, please attend your appointment as planned. The NHS will contact you if your appointment needs to be rescheduled."
The BMA say they've made "every effort" to find a fair solution with number 10.
They say the Health Secretary declined the opportunity to extend the strike mandate, after failing to table an improved pay offer.
In announcing the industrial action, BMA junior doctors committee co-chairs Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said:
"We have made every effort to work with the Government in finding a fair solution to this dispute whilst trying to avoid strike action. Even yesterday we were willing to delay further strike action in exchange for a short extension of our current strike mandate. Had the Health Secretary agreed to this, an act of good faith on both sides, talks could have gone ahead without more strikes. Sadly, the Government declined.
“The glacial speed of progress with the Government is frustrating and incomprehensible. The Health Secretary was quite clear in media interviews during our last action that she would meet us ‘in twenty minutes’ when no strikes were planned. She also made clear that she had a further offer to make. It turned out to be more than twenty days before we were offered a meeting with a minister. When we did it wasn’t with the Health Secretary, and there was no offer on the table. Time has been lost that could have been used to negotiate with us, or at least with the Treasury and the Prime Minister for the mandate to make a credible offer.
“From the very start of the industrial action, we have been clear that there is no need for strike action as long as substantial progress is made, and we remain willing to carry on talking and to cancel the forthcoming strikes if significant progress is made and a credible offer is put forward.
“The Government’s actions are difficult to understand, especially when their own MPs are telling the Chancellor to pay junior doctors more fairly. Whatever the holdup, from whomever it is coming, it needs to end now. This will be the last action of our current mandate, but we are already balloting for six months more. Even now we are willing to put off these strikes to find a solution – it’s in the Health Secretary’s hands.