Do you support the junior doctors’ strike?

JUNIOR doctors at Rotherham Hospital have joined their colleagues across the country in walking out on strike in a row over changes to their contracts.

“We have tried and tested plans to deal with a range of disruptions including industrial action”, Anne Rainsberry, from NHS England, said.

“This is a wholly unnecessary dispute”.

A spokesman for the BMA said the figure of nearly 40% working was unsurprising.

Dr Cummings is now working at a GP practice in Washington, and went to support his colleagues at the picket line at South Tyneside hospital.

“Hunt wants a contract which would be unsafe for patients by removing safeguards which protect us from treating patients when we are overworked and without adequate rest”.

Those who manned picket lines outside Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester General and Glenfield Hospitals said they felt the day of action had gone well.

She added: “Patient care is at the centre of what we do but this strike has been known about”. The government says it’s any shift which includes three hours between 11pm and 6am while the BMA says it’s any shift that includes hours after 10pm. In a Facebook message he wrote: “Everybody in Britain recognizes and is grateful for the hard work and long hours put in by junior doctors”.

The basis for the current round of negotiations is the Government’s offer from early November, including an 11% rise in basic pay for junior doctors.

“As junior doctors we work hard, we work unsociable hours and we work weekends… staying behind after work to make sure things are safe”. Please stand with our junior doctors today.

He said: “This is a palpable demonstration that they don’t only have these concerns when they’re ticking a box on a ballot paper but also when it comes to showing it in industrial action”.

“This strike is not necessary, it will be damaging”, he said.

This will be followed by further strikes.

The strike today is likely to overshadow any of the only two previous walkouts, in 2012 and 1975, while a further emergency-only strike is planned for January 26.

This is the first strike by junior doctors over pay and conditions since 1975, although they were involved in a 2012 walkout over pensions. It is this strike that Hopson says the hospital chief executives he represents are anxious about.

He said doctors have “even been unable to get leave for their own weddings despite months – and even up to a year – of notification in advance. All of us doctors are standing together and fighting for one cause”.