Doctor sits at a desk and writes a prescription for her patient
senior doctors in England’s public hospitals voted to strike in two days next month.
Consultants – equivalent to treating physicians in the US – plan to walk out on July 20 and 21.
These National Health Service physicians will still provide emergency care, but thousands of routine appointments will likely have to be postponed as other staff are not qualified to perform their specialist duties.
It’s bad news for hospitals, which have been expecting five days of union action from junior doctors, who will leave July 13-18.
This “double whammy” of strikes will be a “massive risk” for hospital teams to manage, according to Sir Julian Hartley, head of industry group NHS Providers.
He called on ministers and union leaders to resolve the dispute and avert the strikes.
“These strikes need not continue,” he said a statement. “There is still time for the government and doctors’ unions to settle their differences and find a way out.
The urgency cannot be stressed enough. [Hospital] Trust leaders want the government and unions to sit down, facilitated by a third party if necessary, to find a way to end strikes.”
Months of industrial action
Health workers in the United Kingdom have been on strike since last December over wage increases. Union leaders say wages have risen more slowly than inflation, saying better compensation is crucial to a sustainable workforce that can meet the growing health needs of an aging population.
“July will be the eighth consecutive month of union action in the NHS,” Hartley said. “More than 651,000 routine surgeries and appointments have had to be postponed since December due to union action across the NHS with domino delays for many thousands more.”
Government ministers recently offered a pay deal that divided several health unions, with nurses and other staff still waiting for more.
But that action, which saw several multi-day strikes by key hospital workers, may well be coming to an end. Nurses, who had initially rejected the deal, opted not for more strikes in a vote that also ended Tuesday, leaving only one opposing party with a walkout mandate.
Some ambulance workers who are members of the Unite union may still hold local strikes. But coordinated national action is no longer on the table for broader staff groups.
However, both junior and senior doctors now have a mandate to walk away.
Decisive vote for strikes
Next month’s strikes are both organized by the British Medical Association, which represents around 173,000 doctors and medical students.
More than 86% of voters chose strike action on the ballot of union advisers, and about 71% of eligible members turned out. In all, nearly 21,000 senior doctors voted “yes.”
The vote gives the union six months to walk out. If the dispute is not over by then, the leaders will have to vote again to continue the action.
Hartley said hospital trust “understands how strong doctors feel — the high voter turnout of the consultants shows how strong — and why they’re striking.”
But he added that with each attack it became more difficult and costly to keep patients safe and minimize disruption.
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care told the BBC that strikes were “hugely disruptive to patients and put pressure on other NHS staff”.
They added: “We urge the BMA to carefully consider the likely impact of any action on patients.”