PATIENTS’ SUMMER OF CHAOS
As doctors plan to go on a strike without end, now ambulance staff threaten walkout
PATIENTS face a summer of NHS chaos after paramedics threatened to follow the lead of junior doctors, who are launching an all-out strike today.
Hospitals will suffer unprecedented disruption as thousands of junior doctors abandon their posts in A&E, intensive care and maternity wards over two days.
Consultants and nurses will fill the gaps left by up to 45,000 striking doctors – and paramedics have been asked to set up temporary units outside hospitals. Patients are being advised to stay away from A&E during the walkouts unless it is a real emergency.
But more mayhem could follow within weeks, as two unions yesterday announced plans to ballot ambulance staff for industrial action.
Last night Tory backbenchers called on the Government to ban strikes in the emergency services.
Junior doctors are also considering an indefinite ‘ strike of no return’ should the Government not shelve plans to impose controversial new contracts.
The NHS is facing major financial problems, lengthening waiting lists and ballooning demand, while trying to meet ministers’ demands for radical reform.
But it could face a series of further shocks later this summer, with more than half of junior doctors thinking about quitting the NHS, according to a poll.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt yesterday appealed to junior doctors to abandon the current allout strike, between 8am and 5pm today and tomorrow.
He said the walkout will have an ‘unprecedented impact’ – with more than 110,000 outpatient appointments and 12,500 opera- tions cancelled. Junior doctors are furious at plans to impose deals that will see them work more weekends for less pay.
In the Commons, Mr Hunt acknowledged their ‘frustration’. But he said doctors already receive more Saturday pay than ‘nearly every other worker in the public and private sectors’.
‘No trade union has the right to veto a manifesto promise voted for by the British people,’ he said. ‘I wish to appeal directly to all junior doctors not to withdraw emergency cover, which creates particular risks for A& Es, maternity units and intensive care units.’
Major unions GMB and Unison yesterday announced plans to ballot ambulance workers to gauge support for industrial action in a separate pay row.
The GMB’s Steve Rice said: ‘Ambulance staff are sick and tired of being pushed around. In 2015 we settled a pay dispute with Jeremy Hunt in good faith. Nearly a year on we feel badly let down with an undelivered promise and a continued demand on the 999 emergency service.
‘We urge Jeremy Hunt to get round the table, otherwise a second dispute in the NHS in addition to the junior doctors will be unavoidable.’ Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen urged Mr Hunt to ‘review’ the situation, adding: ‘Doctors are among the most highly remunerated of our public servants – far better remunerated than members of the police or the armed services, who are essential workers and who are barred by law from taking strike action.’
Julian Lewis, a fellow Tory MP, asked whether public demand for a law against such strikes could be ‘irresistible’ if patients died as a result of the walkout.
The Health Secretary said Mr Lewis was ‘right’, adding: ‘The public will be extremely disappointed that professionals are putting patients at risk in this way. I think it is extremely tragic that they are doing that.’
He said it was a ‘crossing of the Rubicon’, adding: ‘When you are paid a high salary it comes with the responsibilities of a profession. It is totally inappropriate to withdraw emergency care.’
But asked whether ministers were planning to clamp down on strikes, a Government source said: ‘It is not something we are looking at right now.’
Dr Johann Malawana, of the British Medical Association’s junior doctor committee, said: ‘We have made a repeated and genuine offer to the Health Secretary – lift the imposition and we will call off this action … but by refusing to get back around the negotiating table the Government has left them with no choice but to take short-term action to protect patient care in the long term.’
The strike does not have the backing of any royal colleges, but their presidents wrote to David Cameron, saying: ‘At this eleventh hour, we call upon you to intervene … end this damaging stand-off, and initiate an honest
‘Totally inappropriate’ ‘Unprecedented impact’
debate about the serious difficulties facing UK health services.’
But a Government source argued that the BMA was more interested in a ‘political win’ than reaching agreement.
Another source said the BMA had radicalised a ‘generation of junior doctors’ and if the Government backed down it would face similar action by other unions, which were watching ‘like a hawk’.
A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘Vital work to review paramedic pay rates is in progress and we continue to work with trade unions to reach an agreed deal for their members.’ Additional reporting: Madlen Davies