Nearly a million medical procedures are on the verge of being postponed or cancelled as a result of the latest round of strikes by junior doctors, according to NHS bosses.
The British Medical Association medics began their fifth walkout at 7am on Friday and will not return to work until 7am on Tuesday in a bitter pay dispute with the Government.
Among the strikers were Foundation Year 1 doctors who started their first roles after medical school nine days ago.
Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about the short-term impact of the strikes: “Significant number of patient procedures and appointments are having to be postponed and rearranged and that will create a significant number of all of those to be cancelled and rearranged, which adds to the total so far of around 800,000.
“So it’s likely we are going to be moving up towards a million mark in terms of the overall impact of strikes. So far, we estimate strikes have cost the NHS around £1 billion and of course, that’s the consequence of having to pay premium rates to consultants to cover junior doctors, the lost income from all of the activity that doesn’t go ahead.”
On what is “the tipping point that we have reached”, Sir Julian added: “Well, I think given we’re up to around almost a million procedures that are having to be rearranged, all of that adds to the total waiting list. The overall waiting list, as we have seen from figures yesterday is now at a record level of 7.6 million.”
Health Secretary Steve Barclay claimed the strike action by doctors “serves only to harm patients” and put “further pressure” on their colleagues.
Mr Barclay defended the Government’s pay offer and said: “Yet, the BMA continues to act recklessly by going ahead with further unnecessary strike action... It’s extremely concerning, especially as the NHS works hard to recover from the pandemic and tackle a record backlog.”
The BMA’s junior doctors committee has previously urged ministers to “act like a responsible government”, negotiate in good faith and with “a credible offer” to avoid further strike action.
The co-chairman of the BMA junior doctors committee called for Rishi Sunak’s direct involvement in pay negotiations, suggesting that an email from the Prime Minister could potentially halt the action. Dr Robert Laurenson said: “We would always like to talk and we’d always like to avert strike action. Mr Barclay could send us an email — or preferably Mr Sunak — and we could organise a negotiation right now and stop the next four days of strike action.”
