Strikes by junior doctors have “fractured” their relationship with consultants and increased the risk of patients dying during action, hospital bosses claim.
The 28 days of industrial action junior doctors have staged this year and the nine days of fresh strikes starting on Wednesday have led to tensions with more senior colleagues who are “worn out” from having to cover for striking junior doctors as well as doing their usual shifts.
Many consultants are frustrated that junior doctors in England are striking twice – this week and from 3 January – at the same time as the NHS comes under its most intense pressure of the year because of the surge in winter illnesses, staff holidays and lack of social care support.
The A&E at Cheltenham general hospital has already closed until 8am on Saturday in an early sign of the widespread damage this week’s industrial action will cause. Thousands of operations and outpatient appointments scheduled for the run-up to Christmas have also been postponed.
On Tuesday the British Medical Association (BMA), the doctors’ union, rejected a last-minute plea from health charities, patient groups and NHS leaders for junior doctors to keep working this week in some areas of care, to help hospitals cope with their extra seasonal workload.
Caroline Abrahams, Age UK’s charity director, said “distressed older people” had been left in pain and had their diagnosis delayed when previous strikes led to the cancellation of their appointments and surgery, for conditions including cataracts and worn-out hip and knee joints.
“Although the NHS strikes that have occurred to date have seriously impacted all those caught up in them, the extended duration of the new ones planned for before and after Christmas, the busiest time of the year in the NHS, poses a much greater potential threat to older people’s health and wellbeing,” she said. Hospitals left with “skeleton staffing” on the forthcoming strike days would find it hard to guarantee patients’ safety, she added.
One hospital trust chief executive said the timing of the strikes was a “moral issue” and the BMA was deliberately holding strikes around the festive period to produce the maximum possible disruption in an already overstretched NHS.
“It’s starting to fracture some of the relationships and become a moral issue. The moral issue being people’s lives are being put at risk.
“For example, if every ambulance in your area is outside your emergency department, that means that no other patients are being attended to. The whole system is going to be affected.
“We know that the most challenging time of the year is the period after Christmas and the first few days of the new year. For the junior doctors to choose to strike at this time means that this time will be significantly more challenging.
“I would not be surprised, but will be utterly dismayed, when someone dies. It really is not what we came into healthcare to do,” added the hospital boss, who asked not to be named.
While hospital bosses publicly say they understand why junior doctors keep on striking, privately many are very concerned about splits emerging in their workforce over the tactics.
A second trust chief executive said: “Consultants are not happy about this. Their relationship in general with juniors is fractured.
“They are not happy because this has gone on so long and they don’t think the juniors have a huge amount to complain about.”
Junior doctors are seeking a 35% pay rise to make up for the 26.2% fall in the real-terms value of their salaries since 2008. They have been given an average uplift of 8% for this year, and recent talks led to Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, offering what the BMA said was another 3%.
One intensive care consultant, who said that 36 of the 40 junior – or trainee – doctors in his unit will be striking this week, said: “We fully support them, of course, as their pay is a pittance. But the timing is awful – nothing short of atrocious.
“We consultants are on our knees. Winter is peak season in critical care and we’ve been covering strikes all year. We’re worn out physically and psychologically.
“Christmas is when we take leave to be with our families and have some respite. Those of us who aren’t flying abroad now have to cover strikes instead.”
But another consultant praised junior doctors’ continuing strikes. “If anything, the government’s response so far [to their demands] is galvanising rather than diminishing their resolve.”
Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, the co-chairs of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, blamed the latest strikes on “unnecessary posturing” by ministers whose “dogma” – refusing to negotiate with junior doctors while they have strikes planned – is delaying talks to resolve the dispute.
NHS strikes by doctors, nurses and other staff since last December have now cost the service £2bn, NHS England said last week.
