Foundation Year 1 doctors started their first roles after medicalNow they are to walk out with colleagues for four full days amid bitter disputes with theDr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chairs of the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee, said: ‘We are now at the stage where a whole new cohort of junior doctors is entering the profession, only to be immediately given no choice by the Government but to go on strike for their future.
The ruling in July concluded that employers could not use agency workers to fill in for striking staff. Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay warned that patients are ‘bearing the brunt of the impact of continuous strikes’ and the latest spell ‘will cause more appointments and procedures to be postponed’.He added: ‘My door is always open to discuss how to improve doctors’ working lives, but this pay award is final so I urge the BMA to end its strikes immediately.
Many hospitals have stopped booking in routine activity on potential strike days to prevent causing more disruption to patients on waiting lists, it said.