Avoid A&E on doctors’ strike days, patients are warned

PATIENTS are being urged to try to stay away from A&E during a strike next week by doctors.

Forty thousand medics are planning a 24-hour protest starting on Tuesday. They will treat emergency cases only.

Talks are expected to continue over the weekend to try to halt the walk-out after the Government agreed to use the conciliation service ACAS.

But hospitals across England have already drafted contingency plans and many will advise all but seriously ill patients to avoid A&E through messages on their websites, Twitter and Facebook.

Some will ask nurses to carry out tasks normally performed by doctors as long as they are trained to do so.

Consultants have been given crash courses to remind them how to use computer systems and insert tubes and drips. Thousands of non-urgent operations and appointments have been cancelled or postponed, including some for cancer or heart conditions.

Doctors plan to follow up the walk-out with two all-out strikes on December 8 and 16 during which they will treat no patients at all.

The Mail contacted 100 health trusts to ask what contingency plans they had in place for the three protests. Of the 22 able to respond, 12 said they would be advising the public to stay away from A&E unless they were seriously ill.

NHS England urged patients to take ‘extra special care’ of their health during the strikes and to look out for vulnerable relatives.

The organisation, which runs the Health Service, issued guidance stating that if patients fall ill they should phone 111 or go on to the NHS Choices website rather than head to a casualty department.

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh in Lancashire trust is advising patients to go to A&E only ‘if they have been involved in an accident or if it is a life-threatening emergency’.

Weston Hospital in Somerset will issue advice to the public on Twitter to attend A&E only ‘if they need urgent medical attention’. Kings College Hospital in London said patients would be urged to use emergency services wisely and to consider going to a GP or pharmacist instead.

Other trusts issuing similar advice include East Lancashire, Dudley, Hinchingbrooke, Leicester, North West London, Gateshead, Queen Elizabeth in Kings Lynn, Tameside and Sheffield Children’s Hospitals.

The strikes are being staged by junior doctors, a category which includes any medic working their way up the career ladder toward becoming a consultant.

On Wednesday the Government agreed to enter talks with their union, the British Medical Association, overseen by ACAS,

The BMA has said that unless Mr Hunt promised not to impose his new contract on junior doctors, the strikes would go ahead.

The Health Secretary claims the deal is necessary to improve care at weekends when research shows patients are more likely to die due to staffing shortages.

Although Mr Hunt plans to reduce the payments hospital doctors receive for evening and weekend work, he has promised to increase their base salaries by 11 per cent.

But junior doctors say their overall earnings will be slashed because so many of their shifts are scheduled out of hours.

Last night Sarah Wollaston, a Tory MP who chairs the Commons health committee, said: ‘The BMA should suspend the strike action.

‘This is harmful for patients and there will be serious consequences.’