1970s socialists
Corbyn and Co prove strike’s over politics, not patients, say Tories
They just have to wait. It could be weeks, it could be months. These are cataracts, knee operations, that all have huge impact on quality of life.’
Joyce Robins of Patient Concern, another campaign group, said: ‘People are very worried about what’s going to happen.
‘They’re going to have to be slotted in to already full schedules. They could well be waiting months. Many of them have been waiting months already.’
Mr Hunt insisted the new working hours were vital. ‘We want all NHS patients to have the confidence that they will have the same high quality care every day of the week,’ he said. ‘At the moment if you have a stroke at the weekend you are 20 per cent more likely to die. That cannot be right. That’s something every doctor wants to sort out as well.
‘The right thing to do is sit round the table and talk to the Government about how we improve patient safety and patient care, not these very unnecessary strikes. People get ill every day of the week. The whole purpose of this is to make NHS care safer.’
Mr Hunt also praised the minority of junior doctors at Sandwell Hospital, West Midlands, who had returned to work after managers warned it was exceptionally busy. ‘That shows the value of junior doctors – in the end they do want to do the right thing for patients and I salute them,’ he said.
Officials at NHS England said 39 per cent of junior doctors worked normally and did not take part in the strike.
But that included many in A&E, maternity and intensive care who were providing emergency care as agreed. Others who turned up to work normally were either not in the BMA or opposed to strike action.
Their colleagues on the picket lines were joined by half a dozen Labour MPs, who were accused of putting political posturing before patients. It is the first time in many years that the Labour Party has officially backed a public sector strike.
Tory MPs claimed the strike had been politicised by BMA leaders opposed to the Government’s austerity programme.
NHS managers in North Somerset had sent an urgent email to GPs on Monday night asking them to help out at the Weston General Hospital. But the message did not say how much they would be paid – if anything. None took up the offer.
Before yesterday doctors had walked out only twice, in 2012 and in 1975.
LABOUR leaders were accused of behaving like ‘ Seventies socialists’ last night after joining doctors on the picket line. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell was among more than half a dozen MPs who stood shoulder to shoulder with striking medics.
Political analysts said it was the first time in recent history that Labour had officially supported a public sector strike.
Even during the chaos of the 1970s and 1980s, the party drew the line at attacking the Government of the day and expressing ‘sympathy’ with union walkouts.
Tory MPs said the fact Labour and the British Medical Association were side by side on the picket lines showed the dispute was political.
Labour’s leadership issued a series of hardline statements claiming junior doctors had been left with ‘no choice’ but to take industrial action.
Heidi Alexander, the health spokesman, said: ‘Anyone who has an operation cancelled today or an outpatient appointment delayed should be under no illusions that the person to blame for all of this is [Health Secretary] Jeremy Hunt and not the junior doctors.’
Mr McDonnell visited the picket line at St Thomas’ Hospital in Lon- don. He accused Mr Hunt of ‘putting his head in the sand’ and urged him to return to the negotiating table to resolve the row.
At least six Labour MPs – including more moderate MPs, such as Ivan Lewis – joined the doctors. Others issued statements of solidarity on Twitter.
Mr McDonnell has said that Labour would automatically support strikes from now on.
Justin Madders, another of the party’s health spokesmen, said: ‘Nobody wanted to see today’s industrial action take place, not least junior doctors. However, Jeremy Hunt chose to pick a fight with the very people who keep our NHS running, and he has left them with no choice but to take this action.’
Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said: ‘No NHS worker takes lightly the decision to strike, but the blame must be laid at the door of this government for the way it has treated doctors and now seeks to smear them in the Press. It is time for this government to apologise to junior doctors and negotiate a fair deal that gets our NHS working again.’
But Andrea Jenkyns, Tory chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on patient safety, said the strike exposed Mr Corbyn’s party as ‘Seventies socialists revelling in getting back on a picket line rather than encouraging the BMA to get back around the table and negotiate for the sake of patient safety’.
She added: ‘ They cannot be trusted to fight for the best deal for service users and are more interested in placard-waving and shouting from the sidelines.
‘Not only are the BMA refusing to talk to the Government, walking out of negotiations after less than an hour, they are ordering their members not to go back to work despite pleas from hospital bosses.
‘This flagrant disregard for patient safety is yet more proof of the BMA’s true intentions to cause maximum disruption, whatever the cost.’
The Mail revealed last week that the BMA had politicised the strike by urging other trade unions to join them on the picket line to smash the Government’s austerity programme. A string of senior BMA figures have links to Labour and other Left-wing groups.
A blog posted on the BMA’s website by Yannis Gourtsoyannis, a member of its junior doctors’ national executive, said: ‘There is no way that we can win this on our own. We need all concerned citizens, activists and trade unionists to stand alongside us in this fight. A victory for the junior doctors would signify the first real crack in the entire edifice of austerity in the UK. Please stand with us. And when you need us, ask us. We will stand by you.’
The plea was immediately sup- ported by Momentum, the hard-Left campaign group formed to bolster Mr Corbyn’s leadership.
Last night, the BMA was locked in a war of words with Mr Hunt over whether there were cracks in the strike turnout. He said that ‘nearly 40 per cent of junior doctors’ had turned up to work and the number doing so showed ‘ the values of the vast majority of junior doctors’.
The Health Secretary told the BBC: ‘This is a wholly unnecessary
‘Sympathy with the walkouts’
dispute.’ But a spokesman for the BMA said: ‘Since we asked junior doctors who would be covering emergency care to go into work today it is hardly surprising that they have done so along with those who are not members of the BMA.’ The New Statesman magazine, considered the Bible of the left, said the strike was ‘the first Labour has ever officially supported’.