The man in charge of Weston General Hospital insists bosses would never “wittingly or unwittingly mislead” unions over staffing levels following claims they “abused” a deal to get seven junior doctors back into work off the picket line. University Hospitals Bristol & Weston NHS Trust (UHBW) chief executive Eugine Yafele defended a decision to request the young medics return to duties during last week’s four-day strike.
He said the organisation was now planning for the next wave of industrial action and was working to rearrange patient appointments and treatments that had to be cancelled. The British Medical Association (BMA) accused the trust, which also runs the BRI and Bristol Children’s Hospital, of misleading it and NHS England after Weston hospital managers asked for the doctors to help cover workforce shortages, only for them not to be needed after all.
The BMA revoked the agreement – called a derogation – which is allowed as part of NHS strike contingency plans, and said UHBW was either unaware it had sufficient staff numbers or it deliberately misled the union. Mr Yafele told a trust board meeting on Tuesday, April 18: “I categorically want to assure the board that we do not mislead wittingly or unwittingly.
Read more: Junior doctors at Weston General back on strike after derogation revoked
“The facts that we presented in terms of the number of staff we had on duty did not change prior to the derogation being issued. And when the derogation was agreed, the issue in terms of staffing had not changed materially.
“So in many respects, the information that we gave was accurate, albeit that we had a fast-changing picture in terms of staffing.” He said it was not yet clear what would happen in the wake of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) last week rejecting a pay offer from the Government and announcing a 48-hour strike from April 30 to May 2, despite Unison members voting to accept it.
“We are already in planning mode for the announced days of strike action,” Mr Yafele said. "Needless to say that it is difficult when we have to balance the need for us to maintain safety and safe services as well as respecting colleagues’ right to take industrial action.
“The real impact is obviously the cancellation of procedures and appointments for patients. We will be working through the impact of those cancellations in our organisation as we have been on an improvement trajectory for elective care and we will look at what we may need to do to recover that position.
“So this is something that, until we have a resolution, is part of our planning and we will continue to put patient safety and safe staffing at the heart of our decisions.”
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