Strikes by junior doctors increase the risk that the NHS will become overwhelmed by winter pressures early in the new year, a senior health service leader has warned.
Their walkouts, happening at the same time as hospitals are struggling with the usual surge in cold weather illness, could propel the NHS towards a tipping point, said Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation.
He said hospitals were already facing bed shortages and rises in cases of norovirus and “delayed discharge” patients.
Junior doctors in England are staging a three-day strike this week, from Wednesday to Saturday, and the timing of a planned six-day stoppage from 3 January could prove particularly difficult for the NHS. The service’s winter crisis often begins just after the new year when more people seek medical help, many staff are on holiday and lack of social care leads to hospitals becoming full.
Taylor said: “There are serious concerns that a cocktail of pressures could reach a tipping point in the next few weeks. Rising ambulance handover delays, winter viruses such as flu and norovirus, bed occupancy levels and the doggedly difficult issue of moving medically fit patients out of hospital when they are ready to leave, remain.
“Couple this with the current wave of industrial action by junior doctors, especially at the beginning of the new year, which is always one of the busiest times for the NHS, and we risk a litany of issues overwhelming the health service.”
Junior doctors’ leaders defended their right to strike and insisted they still retained public support for their long-running campaign of industrial action, despite the disruption it is causing.
This week’s strike has forced hospitals in England to postpone planned outpatient appointments and operations. Cheltenham general hospital has had to shut its A&E unit until Saturday because it has too few staff to operate it safely.
Recent talks between the British Medical Association and the Department of Health and Social Care failed to produce a deal that would end their long-running dispute over junior doctors’ demand for a 35% pay rise to make up for the 26.2% fall in the value of their pay since 2008.
Dr Vivek Trivedi, a co-chair of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, said the government’s offer to them – a further 3% rise on top of the 8% already imposed – was nowhere near enough.
Trevedi blamed the latest stoppage on ministerial intransigence and warned that recurring real-terms pay cuts for junior doctors – mostly medics in training below the level of consultant – would prompt even more of them to work abroad.
Asked whether he believed junior doctors still had the support of the public, he told the Press Association: “I think the public know the only way to have a healthcare system that looks after them is to have enough doctors. And they can completely appreciate when doctors graduate and they’re starting on £15.50 an hour – after the government’s latest pay uplift – and go to a maximum of £30 an hour after 10 years of working, that’s just not enough.”
The offer of a 3% average increase would mean doctors currently paid £15.50 per hour would see that go up to £16 an hour. Trevedi said it was “not unreasonable” for doctors to want to be paid £21 an hour.
He added: “While strike action is disruptive, the public are still very much aware that the government needs to get real and meet us at the table and put an offer that will end this dispute. That’s the only way this dispute will end – an offer that’s acceptable to our doctors, which will work towards building back the value to a doctor’s life, and be able to then retain those doctors who are otherwise fleeing to places like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland. We need to do better.”
Victoria Atkins, the health and social care secretary, claimed some patients would end up spending Christmas in hospital rather than being discharged because of this week’s action.
“So this Christmas we know that these strikes, if they continue today, tomorrow and on Friday, it will mean that people will stay in hospital longer than if the strikes had not happened because hospitals will not be able to discharge them.
“So there will be people spending Christmas in hospital rather than at home. That is an enormous cost for individuals and for their families”, she said.
