Senior Doctors’ Strike to Bring NHS to Standstill

A 48-hour strike by senior doctors in England will start on Thursday and will see major disruption to NHS services and patient appointments.

NHS England has warned that planned industrial action, which follows five days of strikes by junior doctors, could have the most “severe impact.”

Senior doctors will not be seeing patients from 7am on Thursday until 7am on Saturday and will not be supervising junior doctors.

NHS national medical director Professor Sir Stephen Powis said that routine care will be “virtually at a standstill for 48 hours.”

The NHS will in effect experience two “Christmas Day service” days in a row, meaning small routine care and emergency work will still be carried out.

Consultants of the British Medical Association (BMA) are walking out over the government’s offer of a 6 percent pay rise, which they consider “an insult.”

The consultants’ real-term take-home pay has fallen by over a third over the past 14 years, the BMA said.

Dr. Vishal Sharma, who chairs the BMA consultants committee, said that consultants don’t take the decision lightly but are “furious” at being devalued by the government.

“Consultants are not worth a third less than we were 15 years ago and have had enough,” Dr. Sharma said.

Senior doctors want their pay rises to reflect the soaring inflation rate, currently at 7.9 percent.

Last week Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the government’s offer was final, and “no amount of strikes” will change its decision.

A five-day strike by junior doctors ended on Tuesday, becoming the longest ever in the history of the healthcare service. The back-to-back action will leave NHS services “with almost no time to recover,” said Mr. Powis.

He added that the NHS was working with the BMA and the British Dietetic Association to secure emergency and urgent care.

“But in the eighth month of industrial action, and with more than 600,000 appointments already affected, it’s becoming even more challenging to get services back on track after each round of action,” Mr. Powis said.

Radiographers will join the industrial action from July 25 to July 27, after seeking meaningful discussions with the government without success.

The Society of Radiographers (SoR) said their members work for long hours for low pay, which is forcing them to leave the profession. This in turn results in “chronic understaffing and long waiting lists,” the SoR added.

No Choice

Consultants are the NHS’s most experienced clinicians, leading entire services and training doctors, but they have been left “with no choice,” said Dr. Sharma, as the BMA announced the strikes.

The government has been trying to cut waiting times for non-urgent care and eliminate the backlogs, caused by the pandemic.

In May, Mr. Sunak said that there was still work to be done but assured that patients will get the care they need more quickly, backed by the government investment.

However, Dr. Sharma said that the prime minister was undermining his own policy by “showing he doesn’t value those charged with delivering it.”

“Cutting pay once again shows the government’s complete disregard for the profession,” Dr. Sharma added.

In a letter (pdf) to Secretary of State Steve Barclay, he suggested that the government should undertake meaningful reform the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB). The DDRB makes recommendations to the government on rates of pay for doctors and dentists.

The DDRB should make an independent assessment of what doctors should be paid, considering historical pay erosion, according to Dr. Sharma.

The BMA guidance during the upcoming strikes said that junior doctors cannot be asked to “act up” as there will be no consultants present to supervise their activity.

Patients can still use the 999 emergency and the NHS 111 services on strike days.