Strike action across England this week will see unprecedented disruption to NHS services, England’s top doctor has warned today. Professor Sir Stephen Powis said that it had been a challenging bank holiday weekend for hospitals in England and that the industrial action by junior doctors, starting at 7am tomorrow, would bring ‘immense pressure’ on services.
The junior doctor walkout begins at 7am on Tuesday and will not end until the morning of Saturday, April 15, which is the most extensive action on record. Junior doctors make up around half of all doctors in the NHS – they are qualified doctors who have anywhere up to eight years of experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their speciality, or up to three years in general practice.
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, national medical director for the NHS in England, said: “The NHS has been preparing extensively for the next set of strikes but managing additional pressure doesn’t get easier as time goes by – it gets much more difficult – not only due to the sheer number of appointments that need to be rescheduled but also that they can take time to rearrange with multiple teams involved.
