Junior doctors’ strikes ‘ putting NHS in peril’
JUNIOR doctors in England are today on strike for a second day amid a warning that their repeated walkouts risk patients’ well- being and even the NHS.
Their 48- hour walkout from all but emergency care began at 8am yesterday, causing more than 5,000 planned operations and procedures to be cancelled.
It is the third strike by subconsultant members of the British Medical Association in their dispute over new pay terms and took the total of procedures postponed to more than 19,000, said the Department of Health.
The union plans two further 48- hour stoppages, starting on April 8 and April 26. An Ipsos MORI poll for BBC News found the medics had support from two- thirds of the public – as high as for their first two walkouts – but more think the doctors should share responsibility for the disruption.
Fifty- seven per cent think the Government is mainly to blame but that has fallen from 64 per cent last month.
The proportion thinking the medics are most at fault remains at 11 per cent.
Patients Association chief executive Katherine Murphy said: “The failure to resolve the differences is bad for doctors and bad for the taxpayer but above all bad for patients and the NHS.
“We believe that the survival of the NHS itself is in danger.”