A million NHS operations and appointments cancelled because of doctors strikes

GRIM figures out this week are expected to reveal 1 million NHS operations and appointments have been cancelled because of strikes.

The nation is heading for the stark milestone after the junior doctors and consultants walked out in the biggest health strike in British history.

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Senior MPs tore into the militant medics for harming patients with their crippling strikes.

Steve Brine, Tory MP and chairman of the health select committee, said: “The fact remains that large numbers of doctors, especially consultants, are not on strike.

“But those taking part in this ongoing politically motivated action by the BMA are not hurting themselves as much as they are patients.”

Tory former minister Alec Shelbrooke said: “These figures are grim.

“Consultants who are striking should take a long hard look in the mirror and what they are doing to the health of the nation.

“They are still carrying out private work while striking on the NHS.”
Junior doctors are demanding an eye-watering 35 per cent pay rise.

While consultants are demanding above inflation pay bungs – so of more than 11 per cent.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay has hit out at the “coordinated and calculated strike action”, warning it is creating “misery for patients”.

The BMA has defended its strike action. They say medics do not want to go on the picket line but have been chronically underpaid for a long time.

BMA council chairman, Professor Phil Banfield said: “The last thing we ever want is to cause further disruption to the patients in our care and I am extremely sorry that it has come to this.

“But these strikes are about the long-term sustainability of the NHS and ensuring there are trained doctors around to care for all patients in the future.

“It is doctors, with their skills and expertise, who have continued treating patients despite years of relative pay erosion, a pandemic that was a brutal experience for doctors, nurses and other carers – as well as so many families – and the challenges of dealing with the worst waiting lists in the NHS’s history which have impacted patient care across the last decade and more.

“It is the Government that chooses not to acknowledge the cost and value of medical care – it is in their hands to safeguard the retention and recruitment of doctors in the NHS for years to come.

“The longer the Government buries its head in the sand, the more both strikes and waiting lists cost the public purse.”