Will the longest strike in NHS history bring services to a standstill?
Junior doctors in England - who make up roughly half the doctor workforce - walked out across the country at 7am this morning.
It’s the start of a six-day walkout over pay, involving thousands of medics in the British Medical Association.
It will affect almost all routine services as the NHS shifts its focus to urgent and emergency care. Hospitals are also grappling with a surge in flu, norovirus and Covid cases. The strike will end at 7am on 9th January.
The action comes after talks between Health Secretary Victoria Atkins and the BMA broke down last month, with the Government insisting that negotiations would not resume unless the union called off the strike.
Over the past year, the NHS has endured walkouts from numerous groups of its employees.
Analysis by the Standard found that more than 337,000 inpatient and outpatient appointments had been rescheduled in London across a year of industrial action in the NHS.
It is by far the highest figure of any region in England and accounts for more than a quarter (27.8 per cent) of the 1.2 million operations and procedures cancelled nationally.
An NHS source said that the high rate of cancellations in London could reflect how a higher proportion of doctors in the capital were on strike compared with other regions.
The Standard’s Health Reporter, Daniel Keane, explains everything you need to know about the strikes.
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