Yorkshire Coast junior doctors strike again in a dispute over pay

Junior doctors on the Yorkshire Coast are striking for the next four days in a dispute over pay.

It is the fifth time walkout but the Government insists no more talks will take place.

Will Collins, a junior doctor at Scarborough Hospital, said: "I think junior doctors are going to have to be prepared for a long and hard fight. At the end of the day the world economy is about to head into a recession and what's going to happen then? A six percent pay deal isn't even going to scrap the surface, so actually all they've done is pave the way for an even bigger strike in the future.

"There's an awful lot of responsbility on people who haven't been doctors for very long and how we're rewarded. It's just a complete kick in the teeth and it explains why we're going on strike. It's not just that we think we need better pay, it's that we have an awful lot of responsibility and I'm still £2,000 in my overdraft and have to live from pay check to pay check. It's infuriating.

"Our shifts are about to get a whole lot harder and the hardest shift is a typical shift in the NHS which is an on-call shift where you're doing 13-hours from 8.30am to 9.30pm.

"There was one shift where two people called in sick and obviously that means that there would have only been three junior doctors covering the entire hospital, which is completely unsustainable and not safe. It means you work twice as hard and they have to end up filling the rota gaps with agencies who also take a cut while our shifts become harder and harder.

"I've only been qualifed as a doctor for a year and nothing prepares you for the job like actually being on the job. If you're on an on-call shift, it's down to you a lot of the time to tell if someone's going to die extremely quickly, are they going to deteriorate very quickly, or is this something that can't be solved over the weekend that's going to have to be more of a long term thing."

Appointments postponed

Concerns have been mounting over the impact of the strike after a High Court ruling which means the NHS cannot seek support from agency staff, as was the case during previous strikes.

The ruling in July concluded that employers could not use agency workers to fill in for striking staff.

While the NHS can use its own bank staff, NHS England pointed to the "additional challenge" posed to the service during this round of strikes.

Meanwhile, NHS representatives have expressed dismay over the ongoing fallout from industrial action.

So far, almost 835,000 appointments have been postponed as a result of industrial action since December across the health service in England, according to NHS figures.

But NHS Confederation said the true level of disruption is being "masked" and, in a worst-case scenario, the number of cancellations could be double this number.

Many hospitals have stopped booking in routine activity on potential strike days to prevent causing more disruption to patients on waiting lists, it said.

And making room for rescheduled appointments means those further down the waiting list also face delays.

After speaking to hospital operations managers and other NHS staff, the NHS Confederation also said the action is heaping increased pressure on the service, hampering efforts to reduce the record backlog of care and leading to a hefty financial cost to the NHS.

It called the Government's "business as usual" approach to strike action "dangerous" as it urged ministers to reopen negotiations with doctors.

But the Government has insisted that no more talks will take place.

The Department of Health and Social Care said that the pay rise given to junior doctors - a 6% rise along with an additional consolidated £1,250 increase, which the Government describes as an "average increase of around 8.8%" - was "fair and reasonable" and "above what most in the public and private sectors are receiving".

The latest round of strike action from British Medical Association (BMA) junior doctors in England began at 7am on Friday 11th August and will end at 7am on Tuesday 15th August.

The NHS has urged the public to continue to use 999 for life-threatening emergencies and 111 online for anything non-urgent.

It said GPs and pharmacies are also open and largely unaffected by strikes.

Meanwhile, patients should attend their appointment as usual unless they have been told that it is to be rescheduled, it added.