This piece explores the detrimental impact of junior doctors’ strikes on the UK’s healthcare system, linking these walkouts to increased patient mortality rates and health service disruption. With the Government’s policies inciting strikes, the health service faces unprecedented challenges, resulting in longer waiting lists and compromised patient care. Despite the strikes being a response to perceived inadequate pay, the Government accuses the British Medical Association (BMA) of politicising the issue, attributing patient deaths to the strikes. The situation escalates amid negotiations and calls to end strikes as both sides remain at odds. While the Government emphasises financial support and urges resolution, the striking doctors highlight the urgency of addressing the cost of living crisis and prioritising healthcare over international spending. Amidst this conflict, patients are caught in the crossfire, facing prolonged wait times and a heightened risk to their well-being as the struggle between doctors and the Government intensifies, impacting the healthcare system and patient outcomes.
Walkout plans
According to the Telegraph, health service faces its ‘hardest January ever’ as doctors strike for six days. Britain experienced a record number of excess deaths last year amid NHS strikes and the cost of the Covid pandemic. Nearly 53,000 more people died in 2023 than normal. Telegraph analysis shows this number is the highest figure recorded in a non-pandemic year since World War II.
On 3 January 2024, junior doctors started the longest health service strike. Officials say the walkout meant “the most difficult start to the year the NHS has ever faced”.
Pulse Today reports that junior doctors have voted for further strike dates after rejecting the Government’s new pay offer. There will be more strikes over the Christmas period and in the New Year. This follows five weeks of ‘intense negotiations’ between the Department of Health and Social Care and the junior doctors committee. The strikes lasted three days from 20 December and will continue for six days from 3 January. The January walkout will be the longest of the industrial action so far. Strikes have been put on hold over the last five weeks. However, the BMA said the ‘deadline’ has now passed, and the Government has not been able to put forward a ‘credible offer’ for junior doctors. According to Daily Mail, the union has warned that strikes may continue until the next General Election. The General Election is expected to take place in autumn 2024.
Patients are waiting long and dying
The Government’s mismanagement has led to health service disruption. As the Telegraph reports, NHS staff are working hard to prioritise resources to protect special cases. The cases include emergency treatment, critical care, neonatal care, maternity, and trauma. They are working hard to ensure they prioritise patients who have waited the longest for elective care and cancer surgery. Prof Carl Heneghan told the Telegraph that patients are “abandoned to look after themselves” while doctors and the Government were “at a standoff”. Prof Carl Heneghan is the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine director at Oxford University.
Full Fact says current data can’t tell us for certain whether recent junior doctors’ strikes had any effect on deaths. Therefore, it is misleading to suggest otherwise. Deaths could have risen because of the strikes or because of something else. They could be because of a mixture of factors, or they could have just risen by chance. Similarly, the independent says a new analysis of strikes found no evidence that death rates among patients rise on strike days.
According to Standard, Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting raised the alarm over the potential effect of the walk-out planned for April 11 to 14. He told the Commons that the strikes planned for next month will last longer than any previous.
Negotiation table
As Pulse Today reports, the Government has offered an additional 3%. This offer is on top of the average 8.8% increase already awarded in 2023. However, the committee co-chairs, Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi state this rise ‘would still amount to pay cuts for many doctors’.
According to the Times, Striking doctors are harming patients who need life-saving diagnoses and treatment. They must drop their 35 per cent pay claim and negotiate a sensible rise.
As Telegraph reports, a Department of Health and Social Care spokesman stated: “We urge the BMA junior doctors’ committee to call off their strikes and come back to the negotiating table.” The spokesman adds, “We can find a fair and reasonable solution.”
“We know how distressing it is for patients who have had appointments and procedures cancelled.” He adds, “We have provided £800 million to ensure patients continue to receive the highest quality care this winter.”
The Government accuses BMA of causing a health service crisis
People will die because of the strikes by junior doctors, top medics have warned. The British Medical Association is asking for a 35 per cent pay rise. According to the British Medical Association (BMA), the Government accuses the BMA of causing patients’ death and puts politics before patients. This analysis is playing politics with patients’ lives by wrongly linking excess deaths with strikes and being used to undermine further and attack junior doctors. The officials must analyse the data carefully to find the underlying causes of this increase in excess deaths.
Government and cost of living crisis
Junior doctors’ strikes have led to health service disruption. The doctors form the backbone of hospital and clinic care. The doctors are asking for pay rises due to the soaring cost of living. The Government must stop financially supporting Israel in its war against Palestine and tackle the cost of living crisis in the UK.
The Government knows that patients are dying in UK hospitals as they do not receive timely treatment. The Government must stop spending money on Israel and increase the doctors’ salaries instead. This policy will decrease the number of patients dying in the UK and the number of Palestinian children being killed by Israel.
