Forgotten the patients? Now junior doctors’ plan strikes till September
JUNIOR doctors have sparked fury with plans for a fresh strike ballot that could allow further walkouts until September.
The British Medical Association says it will seek a six- month extension to its current industrial action mandate, which expires at the end of February.
The union threatened more disruption just hours after a six-day walkout ended at 7am yesterday.
More than one million appointments and operations have been cancelled as a result of industrial action by junior doctors so far, new figures are expected to show.
Saffron Cordery, from NHS Providers, warned: ‘The NHS and its patients simply cannot afford the possibility of junior doctors seeking to extend their strike mandate for another six months.’
On Monday, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said she would sit down to negotiate with the doctors if they entered talks with ‘reasonable expectations’. But Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, the co- chairmen of the BMA’s junior doctors’ committee, said: ‘Our Government only seems to listen when we have a mandate for strike action.’
The pair said that doctors in their union were ready to settle the dispute ‘once and for all’ and would talk to Ms Atkins at her ‘earliest convenience’.
However, they insisted Ms Atkins must say how she plans to return their real-term pay to 2008 levels, which would require a rise of about 35 per cent. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said last night: ‘We urge the junior doctors’ committee to demonstrate reasonable expectations and be serious about doing a deal so that negotiations can resume.’
IN A blast of common sense, a tribunal has ruled that a social worker should never have been suspended over her belief that no one can change their biological sex.
In any sane world, Rachel Meade, who shared gender- critical articles on social media, would not have needed to take action against her employer, Westminster City Council, and regulator, Social Work England.
But after receiving a complaint, both organisations suggested Mrs Meade’s opinions could be ‘transphobic’. This stance, the panel concluded, was ‘not sensible’ and ‘wholly inappropriate’.
The trouble is, time and again trans activists employ aggressive tactics to silence people who hold differing views to their own. Mrs Meade has won a huge victory for freedom of expression. We salute her.
▪ NO SOONER had the junior doctors ended the longest strike in NHS history than the hard-Left BMA was threatening further walkouts until September. In pursuit of a preposterous 35 per cent pay claim, they have already caused the postponement of one million appointments and operations – putting patients’ lives at risk. By abandoning their wards so callously and needlessly, these medics have chosen hypocrisy over the Hippocratic Oath.