England's top doctor warns NHS will take months to recover from strike action
England's top doctor has warned the NHS will take months to recover from its longest-ever strike action.
An unprecedented 144-hour NHS elective shutdown has started as junior doctors take to picket lines during hospitals’ busiest week of the year. Health leaders say it comes as thousands of people fall ill after catching bugs such as flu, Covid and norovirus at festive meet-ups.
Almost all pre-planned hospital services will be affected by the strike as the NHS shifts all of its focus to urgent and emergency care. Patients are being encouraged to still contact the NHS if they need care.
Prof Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England's medical director, said: “As the longest strike in the history of the NHS begins during one of the busiest and most challenging weeks of the year – the health service is experiencing the winter pressures of flu and Covid combined with the huge disruption of industrial action.
“This latest round of strike action will not only have an impact on this week but will have an ongoing effect on the weeks and months ahead, as we struggle to recover services and cope with heavy demand. “Our message for patients remains the same – continue to come forward for care using 999 and A&E in life-threatening emergencies and 111 online for everything else.”
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Junior doctors, who represent around half the medical workforce, started the longest single period of strike action in NHS history yesterday at 7am, running until the same time next Tuesday.
Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “This week is without doubt the toughest week the NHS faces immediately after the Christmas and New Year period. The vast majority of planned operations, appointments and so on, will have to be stood down. We are deeply concerned about the impact over the coming days."
It comes as a number of hospitals have called on striking junior doctors to return to work due to patient safety concerns, during the longest walkout in NHS history. Services across England are facing "significant demand" on the first day of a six-day walkout by junior doctors, health leaders have said.
Two hospitals declared a critical incident while others reported significant waits in A&E departments - with one hospital saying patients may need to wait "up to 11 hours".
Speaking from a picket line outside St Thomas' Hospital in central London, the final-year medical student Shivani Ganesh, 23, said new graduates were “striking with our feet already”.
Ms Ganesh said that recruiters from Australia were "advertising near picket lines", adding: "Other countries understand that doctors aren't being paid adequately and they're offering much better packages".
Many of those on the picket line on Wednesday morning outside the hospital, which is located across the River Thames from the Houses of Parliament, carried signs that said "£15 an hour is not a fair wage for a junior doctor". Another carried a homemade sign which said "Reduced pay keeps the doctor away".
Analysis by the Nuffield Trust shows junior doctors minimum basic salaries are £32,397 for those in foundation year 1, £37,303 for those in foundation year 2, £43,922 for those in core training and £55,328 for a speciality registrar.
Ministers have refused to continue negotiating with the British Medical Association unless it called off-strike planning. The BMA say they were willing to continue talks but Health Secretary Victoria Atkins is believed to be holding off making any fresh offers until the latest strike is over.
Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chair of the BMA Junior Doctors Committee, said: "The notion that we're hellbent on calling strikes and all we want to do is call strikes is not what we want. “What we want is to negotiate an offer we can put to our members and for our members to accept it."
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"I hope they come back to the table now - but from all of the signals they are sending it won't be until our strike action finishes. And I hope at that point we can come to a resolution.
"So as soon as our strike action finishes we will be asking the Government to get back round the table.” Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said pay negotiations could resume “within 20 minutes” if the BMA called the strike off. She said: “I need them to call off the strikes and come back round the negotiating table.”
But BMA junior doctors committee co-chair Dr Robert Laurenson said: "The only reason the Government will even entertain talks with us is because we have strike action."
In the summer of 2023, the Government gave junior doctors in England an average rise of 8.8%, but the BMA said the increase was still a real terms pay cut for many medics.
They are looking for a longer-term commitment to address 15 years of below-inflation awards. Dr Trivedi said the BMA could plan more strikes if ministers do not quickly resume pay negotiations after the current walkout.
Dr Layla McCay, director at the NHS Confederation, said: "Across the whole country leaders are telling us that this particular round of industrial action, coming at the time that it does, and being of such a long duration, is going to be perhaps its (the NHS') toughest challenge yet."
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