The head of the NHS Confederation has told Brits across the country to avoid excessive drinking and risky behaviour over the Christmas period as the health service faces usual winter pressures combined with impacts of strikes.
Following strikes across the NHS over the last few days, Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation backed the message to avoid “behaviours which are bad for health and are a risk” at a time when the health service is under particular stress.
"It is important that the public use the NHS in the best way they can," he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He said it was not a solution to the pressures facing the health service as he warned of the danger of creating "pent-up demand".
"We can’t ask the public to cope day in, day out with not having the services the NHS wants to offer."
On Tuesday, nurses enacted their second walk out in the dispute with the Government over pay.
Just a day later, ambulance workers staged their own walk out and have planned another strike on December 28.
Despite the walk out, Mr Taylor said the NHS had performed as well as could be expected due to planning and the public response to prior warnings.
He added: “We coped as best we could yesterday, but it’s incredibly important to recognise that we cannot go on coping with industrial action in the NHS because each time it happens, there are direct consequences, but also all sorts of knock-on effects.
"We will repeat the call, which is to trade unions and to the Government to step away from rhetoric and step towards negotiation. We can’t drift into more and more industrial action."
On strike days, ambulance workers agreed to answer category one calls and severe category two calls such as strokes and major burns.
Due to the pressure on the NHS currently, one medic in A&E spoke of going off shift for 12 hours but returning to find the same patients still waiting to be admitted.
A North West hospital chief told the Health Service Journal: “A&E is so busy this week we’ve had staff go home after their shift to come back 12 hours later, and they see the same set of patients in the department, still waiting to be admitted.
“I can’t tell you how demoralising that is.”
Despite the contingency plans from NHS staff, Health Secretary Steve Barclay attacked the unions for striking at a time when the health service is facing “significant pressure”.
