Up to a quarter of a million medical appointments and operations could be postponed because of four days of strikes next week by junior doctors in England, the NHS Confederation has said.
Dr Layla McCay, the director of policy at the confederation, which represents health trusts, said NHS bosses were more concerned about the impact of the latest strike than any other that had taken place so far.
Junior medics in England will take industrial action after the Easter bank holiday weekend, from 6.59am on Tuesday 11 April until 6.59am on Saturday 15 April.
The British Medical Association, the UK’s trade union for doctors and medical students, said the strikes could still be avoided if the government made a credible pay offer.
McCay told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “In the last junior doctors’ strike, we saw about 175,000 appointments and operations having to be postponed. In terms of the disruption that we’re anticipating this time, we reckon it could be up to about a quarter of a million, so that is a huge amount of impact for patients up and down the country.
“What we’re hearing from our members, who are health leaders across the whole system, is that they are more concerned about this than they have been about any other strike. They think that the impact is going to be so significant that this one is likely to have impact on patient safety, and that is a huge concern for every healthcare leader.”
McCay said the disruption could last up to 10 or 11 days, with the strike running between the Easter bank holiday and another weekend. “What we expect to see is really significantly diminished capacity within the health service with these junior doctors being out,” she said.
The health secretary, Steve Barclay, has been urged to meet union representatives over the bank holiday weekend in an attempt to resolve the issue.
Dr Mike Greenhalgh, a deputy chair of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, told BBC One’s Breakfast: “It’s hard to negotiate when only one side is doing it and we’re not getting anything back from the government.
“We’re happy to meet at any time. We would still meet him over the bank holiday weekend before the industrial action next week. And if he was to bring a credible offer to us, it could still, even at this late stage, avert action.”
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has insisted the BMA has to call off the strike for any negotiations to take place.
Greenhalgh apologised to patients who had had operations or appointments cancelled, and he insisted patient safety would not be put at risk. “Patient safety was maintained at the last strikes, and it will be in these strikes,” he said.
He said of the previous action, which lasted for three days: “We met with the NHS employers four times a day. There was a mechanism for them to say if they felt that patient safety was being compromised, and we didn’t have a single request for any derogations during that time.”
The BMA has called on Barclay to negotiate to resolve what it called 15 years of “pay erosion”, with junior doctors losing more than 26% of their pay in real terms.
Greenhalgh said: “At the moment, we have over 7 million people on waiting lists, and the way we get that down is making sure the NHS is properly funded and staffed.”
