The NHS in the South East is preparing for a historic walkout which will affect almost all planned care as the first ever joint strike by consultants and junior doctors begins this week.
Consultants begin their strike action on Tuesday (19th) and are joined by junior doctors on Wednesday (20th).
On Wednesday from 07:00, both junior doctors and consultants will deliver Christmas Day levels of staffing only, meaning that while emergency care will be provided, both groups will then strike on 2nd, 3rd and 4th October, again providing Christmas day cover.
Now in the 10th month of industrial action across the NHS, which has seen more than 885,000 inpatient and outpatient appointments rescheduled, staff continue to work hard to provide patients with the best possible care.
Previous action in late August saw around 12,554 staff off due to industrial action across the country, 1,308 of which were in the South East. The most recent industrial action in August saw 47,129 acute, community and mental health and learning disabilities hospital appointments disrupted over three days across the country, while in the South East it was 6,407 appointments.
Ahead of the extensive action, the NHS is reminding the public that they should continue to use health services as they usually would – using 999 and A&E in life threatening situations and using 111 online for other health concerns. GPs and pharmacies can be used by the public for health advice and appointments as normal.
Andrea Lewis, Chief Nurse for NHS England South East, said:
“We expect that this latest round of industrial action will cause significant pressure on the NHS and it’s expected to be busy, with both consultants and junior doctors striking simultaneously for the first time.
Article continues below this advertisement “We continue to ask the public to use NHS services responsibly and to contact NHS 111 online if you need medical advice or you are not sure where to go. If is life threatening, then call 999 as usual.”
Planned and routine non-urgent care is expected to be disrupted during the strikes. If you have a pre-booked NHS appointment, then attend as planned unless you have been contacted to say that the appointment has been rearranged.
There’s millions of people unemployed in the UK, plus loads who have come over on dinghies, there must be thousands of them who are willing to do nursing and doctoring.
Sack the people who are constantly striking and employ new staff who are reliable and happy to be in a paid job. This includes those at the Post Office who threaten strike action at Christmas just to disrupt the entire UK.
You do not see self employed people going on strike asking for fair pay.
Get a grip I say.
Yeah, cause nursing and doctoring is so easy. And then everyone is surprised why there are no specialists available when they are offered shitty money and prefer to work private… and you’re right, those self-employed in private hospitals don’t strike cause they earn more than at NHS 😉
In private hospitals.?Three times now I have had to see a private doctor at St Mary’s Hospital due to the length of the waiting time for an NHS appointment
Guess what.?It was the same private doctor that was on my NHS appointment each time.So I could have waited 4~6 months to have an NHS appointment with them, or paid over £200 each time to see them privately. In the same hospital.
Doctors are a disgrace.If they stopped their private appointments and dealt with NHS patients like they are meant to then the NHS queue wouldn’t be so long.
I’m glad that you are on a 6 figure salary and get private health care, but those normal people on the island who have health problems and can’t work, or are on zero hour contracts have to wait.
Fire the lot of them. Take take take
Don’t worry, more and more leave on their own accord and go private. Why do you think it’s so hard to find specialists for IOW?
so lets go on strike. we get paid very well but lets get paid more. we work in the nhs and its not bad pay
When will it dawn on the so-calked Union Leaders and striking Staff that it’s not directly the (no matter if they’re red, white or blue) Governments fault. The NHS is given a HUGE pot of money – the Unions and Strikers should be demanding to know from the myriad of Managers and Paper Shufflers what THEY are doing with the money. STOP spending on diversity/equality/stupid guidance notes and patient questionnaires asking MEN and Pensioners if they’re pregnant, and start allocating and spending monies properly. Stop spending huge amounts on overpriced tech and overpriced medications. LOOK at the price changes you are being charged and challenge them.
It’s the Taxpayers money so they don’t care, they just want MORE, MORE, MORE!
Next they will be moaning they are over working with too many patients because of the backlog from them striking
Offer shit money (compared to private) to specialists and then be surprised that they go private.
It’s funny how I on six-figures shouldn’t really care (I’m happy to spend money on private, heck next week I got just a routine yearly check-up for £3000 paid for by my company) but… I would still like to have specialists available locally on IOW on NHS to be honest, travel is a pain, or in case of emegency.
I can only assume everyone else in comments who doesn’t want to lure specialist into NHS with better pay is also a high-earner happy enough to spend thousands of £ on their private healthcare and travel.
It’s not a case of wanting to spend thousands of £’s on private healthcare and travel, more a case I have to spend that sort of money to get any decent healthcare in the UK.
This is despite paying full National Insurance for 55 years.
The surgeons I have used for three operations are all working in the NHS but offer private care as well….
I’m not on a six figure salary, just my pension and using the savings I was prudent to put away…
The NHS is broke and I don’t mean financially.
Being a doctor or consultant has not been a caring profession for years.
Sack the lot of them and re-employ on zero hour contracts….
Doctors should be paid piecework.
They cure a patient within a set timescale then they get paid for it.
If they fail to cure the patient then no wages.
They’ll soon buck up their ideas.
The level of pure, unadulterated, stupidity that you are exhibiting is beyond belief, even when compared to the usual contributors, here.
First up, no draconian measures to make them “buck up their ideas” is ever going to be introduced. End of. So give yourself a pinch and wake up into the real world.
Second, if they were actually paid on the number of patients cured, every single specialist is areas like oncology (that’s cancer doctors in your world) would sod off overseas, go private or specialise in someone safer. Ditto cardiologists, etc.
So when you get something life threatening you will have the choice of paying for treatment yourself or dying pretty quickly.
Now, grow up and try using your brain for a change.
Wrong.
If doctors cured a painful joint, or an itchy rash, then they should get paid.
Maybe they should go overseas and let new blood in their jobs, there’s plenty of unemployed people and newly arrived immigrants who would be glad to have employment. You can imagine how hard these people would work once they get a job, they will do a thorough job and not go on strike.
Some people can’t afford to pay for treatment for whatever reason, so life threatening will end in death. They can’t afford to go private and the NHS queue is too long, mainly due to the doctors doing private work in St Mary’s Hospital.
Maybe some commenters on here should buck their ideas up..
Zero hour contracts?
It will not tempt anyone.
Instead even more will go into private sector or not even consider pursuing this career in the first place.
If you want to have only doctors who are in the job only for the “caring” and not for good life with decent pay – then we’ll have an even bigger shortage.
Other countries like US or Australia will poach them.
I guess you can try to replace them with foreign doctors (if you like that) but Brexit’s in effect now and not helping.
It’s bizarre to me how general public seems to be asking for self-inflicted wounds all the time: “just say NO to well-paid teachers, doctors, public transport, cycling, clean air, 15-minute cities, FoM, right to protest” and so on.
Self inflicted wounds is exactly what the NHS is on track for.
Just imagine, for the sake of illustration, you take your car to a garage for a new tyre but you are told, “I know you have already paid for the tyre, but sorry, your tyre mechanic is out on another job that has just come in and they have cash to hand, but once that is done, he will come back and will maybe move you up the list by a few hours”. The management, will of course, still pay him a retainer for the first job he didn’t actually undertake.
I think the only thing you could reasonably conclude is the system is broke….. I am no where near intelligent enough to know how to resolve it, but paying nurses, doctors etc more is not going to fix it..
Any sensible Doctor would move to Australia, New Zealand, Canada or the U.S
where they will be paid a proper wage.
Who can trust this Tory Government
Totally correct and as they are sensible they would have first taken advantage of the training and benefits handed to them by UK tax payers to get their “qualifications” before jumping ship.
It’s the managers who are sucking the life and money out of the NHS, hiding away in offices, talking holidays, texting there mates on phones, there is no checking on these leeches either. The council don’t help by keep building more and more bloody estates either, the island cannot cope with it.