Worst strike in history of the NHS: Junior doctors and consultants join forces for first in series of co-ordinated walkouts

Doctors have been accused of ‘going against the ethics of medicine’ to stage the most disruptive strike in NHS history today.

Junior doctors are joining forces with consultants in the first of a series of co-ordinated walkouts designed to ‘maximise disruption’.

This week’s industrial action, which began yesterday with consultants and continues until Friday with a three-day junior doctors walkout, may see more than 100,000 operations and appointments cancelled, NHS bosses warned. 

They said the ‘awful scenario’ will put patients at ‘the highest level of risk in living memory’, and affect ‘many more groups of patients who haven’t been disrupted by previous strikes’.

Many patients are experiencing second or third delays to treatment. Cancer patients could be at particular risk, with ‘some of the very sickest patients maybe suffering the most’.

Junior doctors are joining forces with consultants in the first of a series of co-ordinated walkouts designed to ‘maximise disruption’. Pictured: Striking NHS medics outside University College Hospital in central London on September 20

This week’s industrial action, which began yesterday with consultants and continues until Friday with a three-day junior doctors walkout, may see more than 100,000 operations and appointments cancelled, NHS bosses warned. Pictured: Striking NHS medics outside Whittington Hospital in London on September 20

And in what has been branded by the Health Secretary as a ‘politically’ motivated move, the mass walkouts will be repeated next month to coincide with Rishi Sunak‘s first Tory party conference as Prime Minister.

The consultant strike action is running until 7am on Thursday, while junior doctors are staging their own action from today, which will wrap up at 7am on Saturday.

The British Medical Association (BMA), which is coordinating the walkouts, argues that the medics have seen their pay be eroded by 35 per cent over the last 15 years.

As a result, junior doctors have called for a full 35 per cent pay uplift, while consultants set their pay demand 11 per cent. 

For comparison, the Government has offered junior doctors a pay rise between 8.1 and 10.3 per cent, while consultants have been offered six per cent.

Thousands of operations and appointments have already been cancelled as a result of the four days of action by consultants and 19 by junior medics.

The NHS has declared 22 critical incidents — when a NHS trust is unable to deliver critical services, meaning patients could be at risk — since health service strikes began in December, the Department of Health revealed.

This has seen critical care patients transferred to other hospitals due to staffing shortages, while cancer surgery and treatment were postponed, the HSJ revealed. 

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: ‘This is likely to be the biggest walkout the NHS has ever seen, will cause serious disruption, and put patients at the highest level of risk in living memory.’ 

He added: ‘Consultants and junior doctors walking out together is the awful scenario health leaders have long feared, and now face a tough few days in their efforts to maintain patient safety, ahead of a longer, more difficult clear-up of the fallout.

‘We suspect that, despite our members preparing thoroughly in advance, we may see more than 100,000 operations and appointments cancelled this time around, taking the total to well over a million.’ 

Health leaders warned patients to expect five ‘Christmas Days’ in the next three weeks, meaning most non-emergency care has been cancelled. 

Health Secretary Steve Barclay accused the British Medical Association of ‘increasing militancy’.

Professor Karol Sikora, a leading consultant oncologist, said the coordinated strikes were ‘storing up big problems for patients in the future’. 

He added: ‘For doctors to strike is against the ethics of medicine.

‘If you miss cancer and someone goes for another two years without a diagnosis, it’s as good as leaving someone in the gutter bleeding… people will die.’

Dr Vishal Sharma, chairman of the BMA’s consultants’ committee, said staff felt forced into taking strike action, adding that while pay had been eroded, workloads had increased.