Doctors on fourth strike to save NHS

As junior doctors begin their fourth episode of industrial action, all the signs are that both their resolve and public support remain solid. The latest recruit to the doctors’ cause is the Patients Association, which has now indicated its formal opposition to the Government imposing new contracts.

Although the door technically remains open to further negotiations, the Government has shut down any meaningful dialogue by making it clear that if the British Medical Association (BMA) does not agree the new contracts, it will impose them anyway. The Government is relying on continued strike action alienating the public. Although support has not waned yet, the next planned strike action (8am on 26th April to 5pm on 27th April) will also see emergency cover being withdrawn, and the Government will want to see what happens to public support for the doctors after that piece of action before it considers softening its stance.

One factor keeping public support strong is that the new contracts are irrationally ridiculous. At the moment, junior hospital doctors (which means most doctors, apart from consultants) receive a common basic salary plus a higher hourly rate of pay if they are working in the evenings, overnight or at weekends. The Government wants to cut back on most of these higher payments. If the incentive to work anti-social hours is removed, most doctors will go for the “9-5” jobs, leaving the more inexperienced doctors on duty overnight and at weekends. Pay would be similar to the range of salaries which legal secretaries can command – which is not to say that legal secretaries are overpaid, but doctors do put in a great deal more training and do take on much more responsibility.

The Government claims it is taking this step so that the NHS can afford to have more doctors on duty on Saturday, so that a full range of patient services can be offered on this extra day. This is nonsense: if a weekday level of services was offered at weekends, a wide range of other staff would also need to be working at weekday levels (cleaners, haematologists, radiographers, etc.). Junior doctors suspect that if the Government succeeds in imposing contracts on them which offer no extra pay for working on a Saturday, similar contracts will be imposed throughout the NHS. Once hospitals are offering a weekday service six days a week, you only need five hospitals to deliver the services previously offered by six hospitals – so one in six hospitals can be shut down, with no loss of services (on paper) and cash savings on overheads.

•The current strike began today, Wednesday, 6th April, and will continue for 48 hours. Emergency cover will be provided.
•Members of the public can show their support by visiting the picket lines which will be outside all major hospitals throughout the strike.
•Local events around the strike include:
◊Thursday, 7th April, 1-4pm – Doctors will demonstrate basic life support techniques outside Stratford station
◊Thursday, 7th April, 1pm – rally outside Hackney Town Hall, Mare Street.
•Thursday, 7th April, 6pm Tower Hamlets Junior Doctors Support Group, Whitechapel Idea Store

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•NHS struggles under Tory Government:
https://eastlondonnews.co.uk/cash-starved-nhs-struggles-with-targets/