NHS warns of ‘major disruption’ as junior doctors prepare to strike

NHS leaders have warned of “major disruption” as junior doctors in England prepare to go on strike for five days from Thursday with a heatwave covering swaths of the country.

The health service said the walkout would affect “almost all routine care”, with consultants called on to cover for their junior doctor colleagues, who make up about half of the medical workforce.

Junior doctors belonging to the British Medical Association will strike from 7am on June 27 until 7am on July 2, two days before the general election, as they battle for a 35 per cent pay rise.

The fresh walkout follows a five-day stoppage in February and comes after the UK Health Security Agency issued yellow heat health alerts for most of England.

Yellow is the second highest of four alert levels. According to the Met Office, the national weather service, it indicates periods of heat that may affect people who are “particularly vulnerable . . . and are likely to struggle to cope and where action is required within the health and social care sector specifically”.

The UK had its hottest day of the year so far on Tuesday, with a high of 30C registered in Chertsey, Surrey, according to the Met Office. The agency has forecast “hot sunshine across England and Wales” on Wednesday.

The wave of industrial action by staff that began in December 2022 has compounded pressures on the NHS, with roughly 1.5mn operations and appointments cancelled since the action began.

A fresh round of talks between junior doctors and the government began this month, before Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a general election for July 4, in a push to end a dispute that has seen junior doctors strike 10 times in the past two years.

In a statement, NHS England said on Wednesday: “The NHS will face major disruption this week as junior doctors launch five days of industrial action, with services already under increasing pressure.”

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England, said the stoppage on Thursday would “again hit the NHS very hard, with almost all routine care likely to be affected and services put under significant pressure”.

Philip Banfield, chair of the BMA’s governing council, said walkouts by junior doctors did not “empty the hospital out of doctors”.

“In any heatwave warning, if you end up going to emergency departments because of heat, you will be treated as you would on any normal day,” he added.

The latest strike will also increase pressure on Labour, if it wins the election, to settle the dispute with doctors and avert future walkouts.

Public sector pay disputes were flagged as one of the most immediate problems in the event the main opposition party won power, according to a dossier drawn up by Sue Gray, Labour’s chief of staff.

After five weeks of talks late last year, the BMA rejected the government’s offer of a 3 per cent pay increase for junior doctors, on top of a roughly 9 per cent rise already offered. The union said the proposal was not “credible” and did not address 15 years of inflation-linked pay erosion.

Wes Streeting, Labour’s shadow health secretary, has warned junior doctors that the party would not be able to meet demands for a 35 per cent pay rise immediately after the election, although he has said he is “willing to sit down and negotiate”.

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said that while the body representing health managers “fully understand[s] the genuine grievances junior doctors have . . . NHS leaders will still be frustrated that they will yet again be taking to the picket lines”.

“Holding strikes in the middle of an election campaign when no political party is in a position to bring the dispute to a close is a bitter pill to swallow for staff who have to plug the gaps and patients who will have their appointments cancelled or delayed,” he added.