Harrogate District Hospital could face a further six months of disruption after junior doctors voted to extend their mandate for strike action.
It’s been over a year since junior doctors began striking over pay and this week 98% of British Medical Association union members backed further walkouts on a turnout of 62%.
Most recently, junior doctors at the Lancaster Park Road hospital staged two separate walk-outs between December 20-23 and January 3-9.
The strikes have had a “draining impact”, according to the boss of Harrogate & District NHS Foundation Trust.
Junior doctors are qualified doctors in clinical training and they make up nearly half of the medical workforce in England.
The BMA says while workload and waiting lists are at record highs, pay has effectively been cut by more than a quarter since 2008.
The union is asking the government for a 35% pay rise, but health ministers have described the demands as unreasonable.
A spokesperson for Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust said the hospital hopes a deal can be reached before future strikes take place.
They said:
“Whilst we respect the decision made by BMA junior doctors to extend their mandate for industrial action, we hope that the BMA and government can have effective discussions which will lead to a solution before further strikes are undertaken.
“Should further industrial action take place we will continue to manage the disruption to ensure our patients are safe during the strike, any impact on patient care is kept to a minimum and emergency services continue to operate as normal.
“We value our staff and know that junior doctors do not want to be striking. We hope a breakthrough can be made soon so that we can continue to focus on delivering high quality care to all those who need it.”
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Picket line in Harrogate as trains and hospital hit by strikes
A picket line was in operation outside Harrogate railway station today as the district was hit by another day of strikes to key services.
Members of train drivers’ union Aslef picketed on Station Parade from 8am to noon in what was their 14th wave of industrial action since June last year.
No trains operated on the Harrogate and Knaresborough line and rail operator Northern has warned of further disruption tomorrow and Friday. Passengers are advised to check before they travel as there may be some short notice cancellations.
Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan said there had been no further talks with the government or rail firms since the union rejected a “risible” pay offer in April.
Tricia Williams, chief operating officer at Northern, said:
“We hope to see a resolution to this issue in the near future and an end to the disruption these strikes cause.”
A three-day strike by junior doctors and consultants at Harrogate District Hospital is due to end at 7am tomorrow.
The British Medical Association said the strike over pay had resulted in ‘Christmas Day’ cover, meaning emergency care had been staffed but only minimal cover had been provided elsewhere.
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Harrogate junior doctors: ‘We are prepared to continue to strike’
Junior doctors on strike in Harrogate have pledged to continue to stage walk outs until the government comes to the negotiating table.
Members of the British Medical Association are striking for 72 hours as of today after negotiations with ministers over a pay increase broke down.
Doctors based at Harrogate District Hospital set up a picket line on Wetherby Road this morning.
The move comes as the BMA described the latest government pay offer of a 5% increase for junior doctors as “in no way credible”.
It has called for a 35% pay hike in order to meet successive years of below inflation rises.
Junior doctors from the British Medical Association on strike in Harrogate.
Antony Antypas, one of the junior doctors on strike in Harrogate this morning, said some of his colleagues were considering leaving the profession due to pay.
He said:
“We have got to a position where we have lost a lot of our pay.
“There are staff that want to leave their job and go somewhere else. But we do not want to get to that point.”
He added that staff were “constantly fire fighting” against operation waiting lists and emergency department waiting times. He called for a better offer for junior doctors in order to “retain staff”.
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Mr Antypas, who studied at University of Nottingham and is a second year foundation doctor at Harrogate hospital, added that junior doctors would be “prepared to continue to strike” until their demands are met.
The move comes as officials at Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust has urged patients to attend appointments as normal unless contacted to reschedule.
However, the trust warned that some outpatient appointments may be cancelled at short notice during the three-day strike.
A spokesperson said:
Junior doctors begin strike at Harrogate District Hospital“We understand this may cause our patients and their families to worry about how services will be delivered during this period. The safety of our patients is our primary concern and we have developed plans for the proposed action and its impact on our services, patients and staff. We are working hard to prioritise resources to protect emergency treatment, critical care, neonatal care, maternity, and trauma, and ensure we prioritise patients who have waited the longest for elective care and cancer surgery.
“To prioritise emergency care and to keep all patients safe, we are having to make changes to some of our outpatient and theatre services on the days of industrial action. We are aiming to keep as many outpatient appointments and elective activity across the three days of strike action, but there is a risk that these may be cancelled at short notice.
“Patients should continue to attend appointments as planned unless contacted to reschedule.”
Junior doctors formed a large picket line on Wetherby Road in Harrogate this morning as a 72-hour strike got underway.
Up to 61,000 junior or trainee doctors began a walkout at 7am today in a dispute over pay.
Many cars sounded their horns in support of those taking part in today’s action on Wetherby Road, close to Harrogate District Hospital.
The British Medical Association and Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association have defied calls from Health Secretary Steve Barclay to call off the strike.
They are calling for a 26% pay increase to “reverse the steep decline in pay faced by junior doctors since 2008/9”, according to the BMA.
A statement on Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust‘s website says the strike will impact services to patients. It says:
“Outpatients appointments and planned activity may be affected.
“Patients should continue to attend appointments as planned unless contacted to reschedule. We will be re-arranging any postponed appointments as a priority.
“We appreciate this situation is frustrating for patients affected and apologise for any inconvenience caused.
“Nobody should put off seeking urgent or emergency care during the strikes, and key services will continue to operate.”
The full statement is here.
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Harrogate GP surgery postpones non-urgent blood tests as supply crisis deepens
A Harrogate GP surgery has warned it will have to postpone non-urgent blood tests as the national blood supply crisis affects the district.
The Spa Surgery has said it will contact patients to rearrange routine blood tests but said urgent blood tests will continue as normal. Other local GP practices are also believed to be affected.
The surgery, which is based at Mowbray Square Medical Centre, said on Facebook:
“As you may have seen on the national news, there is a global shortage of the sample tubes we use when we do blood tests.
“This means if you have a routine (non urgent) blood test booked with us in the coming few weeks, we may be getting in touch with you to rearrange it. We will still be doing urgent blood tests and these will be processed as normal.
“We have also removed the online booking option on our practice website to ensure we can strictly control our stocks of sample tubes.”
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The British Medical Association, a professional body for doctors in the UK, said in a statement yesterday the shortage of blood tubes across hospitals and GP surgeries was now severe and if the NHS did not reduce the amount being used in the coming days, even the most clinically important blood tests may be at risk.
The statement added doctors had “made plain their concerns about the implications for patients and their anger that this shortage has been allowed to happen” and the situation was now urgent.
Dr David Wrigley, BMA council deputy chair, said:
“This crisis has put doctors and their patients in a terrible, unenviable position. No doctor knowingly undertakes unnecessary blood tests and to now have to ration all those we are doing, as well as cancel hundreds more, goes against everything we stand for as clinicians.
“However, if we don’t try to follow the NHS guidance, it’s clear we will get to the point where even the most clinically urgent of blood tests may not be able to be done as we simply won’t have the tubes for the blood to go into.
“We are at a very perilous point and it’s surprising that NHS England hasn’t declared a critical incident given the very strong possibility that NHS organisations may temporarily lose the ability to provide lifesaving diagnostic testing.
“Many GP practices – like mine – will now have to spend hours assessing which already scheduled tests can or cannot be cancelled and this takes time away from frontline patient care when it is most needed. Cancelling tests makes patients anxious and can mean a missed diagnosis.”
Have you been affected by the blood shortage? Email us at contact@thestrayferret.co.uk.