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Up to a quarter of a million appointments and operations could be postponed due to a four-day strike by young doctors, the NHS Confederation has warned, amid fears for patient safety. Dr Layla McCay, the confederation's policy director, said health chiefs were more concerned about the impact of the latest strike, which falls after the Easter holiday weekend, than any other strike so far. Doctors in England are preparing to take industrial action from Tuesday in a bitter pay dispute, but the British Medical Association has said strikes could still be averted if the government makes a "credible offer".
Dr McCay told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "During the last young doctors' strike we saw around 175,000 appointments and operations needing to be rescheduled."
"In terms of the disruption that we anticipate this time, we estimate that it could reach around a quarter of a million, which is a huge impact for patients across the country."
He added: “What we hear from our members who are health leaders across the system is that they are more concerned about this than any other strike.
"They think the impact is going to be so significant that it's likely to affect patient safety and that's a big concern for all healthcare leaders."
Dr McCay said the outage could last up to 10 or 11 days, with the strike set between the Easter bank holiday and another weekend.
“What we expect to see is really significantly reduced capacity within the health service with the absence of these young doctors,” he said.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay has been asked to meet with union representatives over the bank holiday weekend to resolve the issue.
Dr Mike Greenhalgh, deputy co-chair of the BMA's Young Physicians Committee, told BBC One's Breakfast: "It's hard to negotiate when only one party is doing it and we're getting nothing back from the government on this front."
He added, “We are happy to meet at any time. We would meet him again on the bank holiday weekend before next week's industrial action.
"And if you made us a credible offer, you could still, even at this late stage, avoid action."
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has insisted that the BMA must call off the strike for negotiations to take place.
Dr. Greenhalgh apologized to patients whose operations or appointments were canceled and insisted that patient safety would not be jeopardized.
"Patient safety has held up in recent strikes, and it will be in these strikes," he said.
We currently have over seven million people on waiting lists and the way we are reducing this is by making sure the NHS is adequately funded and staffed.
He said of the earlier action which lasted three days: 'We meet NHS employers four times a day.
"There was a mechanism for them to say if they felt patient safety was compromised, and we didn't have a single waiver request during that time."
The BMA has called on the Ministry of Health to negotiate to resolve 15 years of "salary erosion", with young doctors losing more than 26% of their salaries in real terms.
Dr Greenhalgh said: "We have over seven million people on waiting lists at the moment and the way we are reducing that is by making sure the NHS is adequately funded and staffed."
"And part of that is making sure there's a fair deal on compensation for our members."
The four-day strike will take place immediately after the Easter holiday weekend.
They will be from 6:59 am on Tuesday until 6:59 am on Saturday, April 15.
PA wire
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