West Yorkshire junior doctors strike in dispute over pay
They're walking out for the next five days
Junior doctors at hospitals are walking out from today in its long-running dispute over pay.
Members of the British Medical Association will be taking its 11th-round of strike action across the country for the next five days, between 7am today (Thursday 27th June) and 7am on Tuesday 2nd July.
Junior doctors make up around half of the doctors in the NHS. They are qualified doctors who have up to eight years’ experience as a hospital doctor, or up to three years in general practice.
Doctor Tom Sharpe is Chair of the Yorkshire Junior Doctor's Regional committee and a trainee in Leeds. He says they feel they've got no choice: "Unfortunately yes the strikes do lead to elective surgeries and routine appointments being cancelled, but as we've seen in our previous rounds of strikes there hasn't been any impact on patient safety. Hospitals have been staffed by our consultant colleagues and our speciality doctor colleagues who have kept patients safe."
"Waiting lists are in the millions, the NHS is understaffed, doctors are leaving for other Countries like New Zealand. Patients and doctors deserve better."
"The public is on our side and we thank them for their support and I'd like to reassure them that they will be kept safe during this round of industrial action, as they have been in every other round of industrial action."
"Enough is enough"
The BMA's chair of council Professor Philip Banfield said: "It's got to a point where doctors felt completely disempowered and what has happened is the juniors have got together and power of social media and WhatsApp, they started talking to each other and saying: 'You know what, enough is enough'.
"The junior doctors are really good at communicating with each other via WhatsApp and that has been the key to the success of their strike action because the junior doctors committee can talk almost instantaneously with their membership - they can talk to 50,000 people really quickly and get instant reports back. I'd love to have an organisation that actually can do that.
"You've seen industrial action now go on for well over a year. It's incredibly disappointing that this has gone this far."
He added: "We have met with Labour several times over the last two years - we haven't always agreed, we've had disagreements. So, do I expect the conversation to take place? Yes. Do I expect that conversation to be one that is easy or tough? It'll be a tough conversation."
Prof Banfield said Mr Sunak's government "felt that although there was a probably a deal to be done with consultants and specialist doctors, that the junior doctors weren't interested in a deal at all".
"It just has felt as if government has wanted to do a deal with consultants first, which has cost them a considerable amount of money. Then done the specialists and they've just procrastinated over the juniors."
Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at The King's Fund think tank, said: "An immediate challenge facing the next government will be resolving industrial action in the NHS which has lasted for well over a year now. It is difficult to comprehend how either the Conservative Party or the Labour Party can deliver on their manifesto commitment to recover NHS performance over the next parliament without first ending the dispute."
Junior doctors make up half of the medical workforce and their last walkout in February led to 91,048 appointments, procedures and operations being cancelled.
Key NHS services
- NHS 111 online which includes a symptom checker and will re-direct you to a health professional if you need medical attention.
- Telephone 111.
- Self-care advice is available online from the NHS at www.nhs.uk.
- Details of local pharmacy services are available at www.nhs.uk.
- Families can also download the Healthier Together app for advice on common childhood illnesses and when to get medical help. Healthier Together is available from the App Store and Google Play.
Anyone needing urgent mental health support can get help by calling 111 and choosing option 2.