Don’t frisk it

“DON’T do anything frisky” the headline warned – and for once the husband looked relieved.

Then he realised it actually read “risky” and was to do with yet another strike rather than fulfilling martial obligations.

Workers in this country have downed tools so much this year they make Trump’s porn-star “friend” Stormy Daniels look like a novice.

This week it’s the turn of junior doctors, who walked out at 7am yesterday and don’t return until 7am on Saturday.

That’s four days and coming off a bank holiday. An estimated 350,000 of us will have appointments and procedures cancelled. Figures that will add to the 7million of us already on NHS waiting lists.

The avoiding “risky behaviour” advice comes from health leaders in a vain attempt not to add to the chaos.

Though God knows how you actually define what’s risky.

To my coming-up 82-year-old mum, it could be something as simple as walking to her local shops. To a fit, healthy young man, a game of football with his mates. And we all now know what the husband’s idea of it is.

Steve Barclay, the Health Secretary, says doctors walking out will put lives at risk. And with cancer appointments cancelled, he is right.

But then why did he give doctors the ultimatum of calling strikes off before even considering negotiations?

The British Medical Association – the doctors’ union – is asking for an 35% pay increase and says the Government is treating them with contempt.

Their demands would add an extra £20,000 a year to some junior doctors’ wages. An impossible price to pay.

Meanwhile stuck in the middle are us lot. Many of whom still have to camp outside our GPs just to get a telephone appointment.

Polls have shown that more than 60% of us back the doctors taking industrial action and we probably all agree that most of them work incredibly hard doing an amazing job and give their all. They deserve to be rewarded well. But is walking out for such a long period of time the right way to go about it? Especially after the Easter break where many services were operating below full capacity due to staff holidays.

Depressingly, it’s reckoned that these four days will leave us facing a month of disruption. Even more depressingly is the plan that doctors will strike for four days after every bank holiday until the next general election unless they get their way.

Which blows out of the water any pretence that this industrial action is simply about NHS conditions for staff and patients.

It’s political.

Other health unions have paused strikes for talks that lead to pay deals but the relationship between the BMA and Government is abysmal.

Neither side are covering themselves in glory. Meanwhile the sick are getting sicker, illnesses are being missed and, yes, people will die because of it.

There are many doctors who are themselves appalled at this stand off and are refusing to strike.

There are also those who are fleeing the basket case our NHS has become to find jobs abroad, in particular Australia, where both the temperatures and the pay is higher.

The NHS is one of the largest employers in the entire world, and the largest health care service in Europe. Why? We’re hardly a huge country.

It’s a sprawling mess of an organisation, no longer the envy of a world but a cult. Both Tory and Labour Governments are to blame and it’s time they both worked together to sort it out.

They won’t though because when it comes to that next election, “saving” the NHS will be the trump card. Political points will once again be scored while conditions for patients and overworked, stressed staff worsen.

So thoughts with all of you who are suffering, are in pain or waiting for muchneeded appointments and procedures. A week is a long time in politics.

A day is a long time in cancer.