Resident doctors begin 13th strike as pay dispute in England conitnues

As junior doctors embark on a five-day strike in England, NHS bosses aim to keep almost all services running.

The 13th strike by British Medical Association members in the long-running pay dispute begins at 07:00 GMT and continues until 07:00 Wednesday.

Junior doctors, the new name for junior doctors, will be withdrawn from both urgent and non-urgent care services.

Hospitals will be under the most pressure, with junior doctors expected to make up about half of the medical workforce. But NHS England said patients should still attend appointments unless advised otherwise.

He said he wants 95 percent of non-urgent work, such as hip and knee surgeries, to continue.

The NHS aims to do this by reassigning consultants and other senior doctors and offering them overtime and relying on non-strikers; Around a third of junior doctors are not members of the BMA.

But this will come at a significant cost, with the NHS estimating the cost of the five-day strike to be £240 million.

Despite efforts to maintain services, patients like 68-year-old Colette Houlihan still faced delays.

He was supposed to have a pre-surgery appointment on Monday, but that appointment was postponed until the end of December.

Ms Houlihan, from Cambridgeshire, who is awaiting removal of a benign tumor from her neck, said she had already had to endure two cancellations but could understand them as she had been told higher priority patients needed to be seen.

“They could have had cancer. I didn’t care about that, but this is different.

“I am outraged. By hitting, they are ignoring the Hippocratic Oath; first of all, they are doing no harm.

“A strike causes harm by delaying procedures, sacking senior doctors and creating chaos in the system,” he said.

NHS England medical director Prof Meghana Pandit said it was frustrating and disappointing to have a new round of industrial action at a challenging time for the NHS, with flu cases rising earlier than usual.

“Despite this, NHS staff are working extremely hard to maintain care and limit disruption,” he added.

However, BMA leader Dr. Tom Dolphin said it would be “challenging” to keep most services running.

He said doctors had the legal right to strike and should not be “bullied or forced” to work.

And he warned that his members would only leave the picket line if there was a major emergency such as mass casualties.

The latest strike comes after Health Secretary Wes Streeting launched arguably his strongest attack on the BMA.

Speaking at a conference of healthcare executives this week, he called the union “morally reprehensible” and accused it of acting like a cartel, trying to hold the public and the government to ransom.

He said doctors had received generous pay rises over the past three years, worth around 30%, with average basic salaries rising to just over £54,000.

Talks between him and the union broke down last week BMA rejects new bid to end dispute.

Streeting argued he could not negotiate salary for the year, but offered a deal that included covering out-of-pocket expenses such as exam fees and membership fees, as well as increasing specialist training places.

But the BMA argued that despite the pay rises, junior doctors’ salaries were still a fifth lower than in 2008 when inflation was taken into account.

The union also warned that doctors were struggling to find work at a key stage of their training, between the second and third years of specialist training.

At this stage this year there were more than 30,000 applications for 10,000 jobs, although some of these will be doctors from abroad.