ONLY 1 IN 3 DOCS SUPPORT STRIKE

Leak reveals just 31% backing

Royal Colleges attack walkouts

But militant says: Let’s break Tories

ONLY a third of junior doctors back rolling, all-out strikes – despite their union announcing the biggest walkout in NHS history, leaked documents reveal.

A secret ballot earlier this summer showed that just 31.5 per cent supported a full walkout that was time limited. The rest said they preferred other options, including less drastic action or to accept the Government contract and get on with their jobs.

It comes as the British Medical Association (BMA) announced that junior doctors would stage week-long walkouts once a month until Christmas, leading to the cancellation of 125,000 operations and a million appointments. Last night, there were growing questions about the level of support for the strike, which threatens to tip the entire NHS into crisis.

It is understood the BMA approved the action in a narrow vote at a heated meeting. At least two doctors present warned it would cost lives.

But another doctor said they should try to ‘break’ Theresa May and ‘pick up where the coal miners left off’. In a series of dramatic developments last night:

The Prime Minister accused the BMA of ‘ playing politics’, backed Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and urged doctors to put patients first;

It was claimed the BMA approved the walkout by just 16 votes to 11, with doctors forced to state their vote out loud;

One doctor at the meeting warned colleagues of the impact on neonatal care; another said the strike would be ‘suicidal’; one said it was ‘all about money’;

At one point during the summit there was so much heckling from both sides

that chairman Dr Mark Porter had to call for calm;

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said it was ‘disappointed’ by the action.

Labour politicised the walkouts, with leadership hopeful Owen Smith calling for Mr Hunt to be sacked and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell vowing to join the picket line.

The first of the five-day strikes will begin on September 12. Last night, the BMA said three further five-day walkouts would take place on October 5, November 14 and December 5.

The Government estimates that 125,000 operations will be cancelled this autumn – including 25,000 in the first week – and letters will soon be sent to those patients affected.

In what are expected to be the worst strikes in the NHS’s history, junior doctors will abandon all hospital departments including A&E, maternity and intensive care. Hospitals are frantically drawing up contingency plans amid fears that the walkouts will push an over-stretched health service to the brink.

The BMA took the decision to stage the unprecedented strikes after the Government tried to impose a contract on junior doctors which will pay them less for weekend work. About 50,000 junior doctors voted on the contract in June. More than half rejected the deal, despite ministers making several concessions.

However, a document prepared for Wednesday’s BMA meeting reveals that junior doctors carried a second vote shortly afterwards. They were asked what they wanted to do next, and what type of industrial action they would be prepared to support.

The options included staging an indefinite all-out walkout, taking industrial action where they could still treat emergency patients or just accepting the contract. They could tick as many options as they liked. About 20 per cent of junior doctors – about 7,000 – took part and the results were never released.

But they are contained in a document, leaked to the Mail. They show that just 35.5 per cent indicated they would be prepared to support an indefinite, total strike. Even fewer – 31.5 per cent – said they would support a full walkout that was time limited. Despite this, the chairman of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, Dr Ellen McCourt, claimed these results showed that most doctors wanted to take some form of action – and pushed ahead to prepare for a series of five-day walkouts.

On Wednesday, these proposals were voted on by 27 of the BMA council’s 40 members – not all were eligible to vote – who had to state out loud whether they favoured a strike.

Sixteen were in favour, 11 against, with one of the more hard-line members – a consultant – allegedly overheard saying he wanted the union to be more ‘militant’. He said the union could ‘pick up where the coal miners left off.’ The doctor also claimed it was a chance for the BMA to show they were the strongest union and to ‘break’ Mrs May.

When the Mail put these comments to the consultant through the BMA press office last night, he strongly denied making them.

Another senior consultant at the meeting said: ‘I do not support industrial action. Emergency care will be affected, including neonatal intensive care (newborn babies). People will die. This will be blamed on us.

‘We cannot argue it’s about safety. It’s about money and always has been.’ Another senior

‘Pick up where the coal miners left off’

GP tried to urge members to vote against the strike, warning it would ‘cost lives’. he said further industrial action would be ‘suicidal’ because the new Prime Minister ‘will show her courage’ and ‘crush’ the BMA.

Last night, government sources pointed out that only a third of junior doctors overall had rejected the contract during the June ballot.

Only two thirds of the 55,000 junior doctors in england are members of the BMA, and only two thirds of this number voted. Of these who did vote, just 58 per cent rejected the deal – which added together is less than a third of the overall total.

Last night, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said it was ‘disappointed’ at the prospect of further industrial action. ‘We do not consider the proposed strikes are proportionate. Five days of strike action, particularly at such short notice, will cause real problems for patients, the service and the profession.’