Hospital bosses reassure South Yorkshire patients during strike
With Junior Doctors on strike South Yorkshire's hospital bosses want to reassure patients they're keeping disruption to a minimum.
Hospital bosses in South Yorkshire have been reassuring patients as junior doctors have gone on strike.
The Sheffield Children's Hospital has told parents to still take their children to its A and E department in an emergency because it's "running as normal".
It's put a statement out saying:
"Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust are working to ensure that we continue to deliver safe, quality services to children and young people and minimise disruption caused by today's strike by junior doctors on 12 January.
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"Emergency services are completely unaffected and steps have been taken to minimise the impact on all other services.
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"We have tried and tested contingency measures to make sure children and young people get the care they deserve.
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"A small number of appointments have been re-booked and families have been contacted directly if they are affected. There is no need to contact the hospital as we will have made contact directly with affected patients."
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Three clinics have been cancelled at Rotherham Hospital but at the moment there are no plans to cancel operations there.
Conrad Wareham, the Trust’s medical director, said:
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"Our priority is to deliver safe care to our patients and we aim to deliver the maximum service possible while respecting that some of our colleagues do wish to take industrial action. "It is important that our patients make every attempt to come to their appointments so that we can continue to deliver high quality care." Dr Richard Jenkins is the Medical Director at Barnsley Hospital.
He said:
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"I would like to take this opportunity to reassure our patients and the public that as always, patient safety and quality care remains our top priority and will continue to throughout this industrial action period.
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"We have strategic plans in place to ensure that patient care is affected as little as possible. Regrettably some services may need to be changed during this time; patients and the public can find full details of any changes on the Trust website.
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"The Trust recognises the important role that Junior Doctors play in the NHS and in our Hospital. The industrial action is as a result of a national contract dispute rather than a dispute between the Trust and Junior Doctors. It is clear that they have not taken the decision to take industrial action lightly.
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"There will most likely be picket lines outside the Hospital during the strikes but I would like to assure anyone who needs to cross the lines that these will be non-hostile demonstrations."
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Local junior doctors say they've joined picket lines because they think planned changes to their contracts by the Government are "unsafe".