Dozens of hospitals have had to cancel the equivalent of a tenth of their annual routine operations and appointments because of junior doctors’ strikes, analysis shows.
As another five-day walkout begins on Saturday, NHS bosses said that they faced “a near impossible task” in getting on top of backlogs of routine care while keeping patients safe.
Patients will again be left waiting in pain, they said, as the continued strikes are having a “huge impact” on treatment and the functioning of the health service.
No talks have been held between ministers and the British Medical Association since the last round of strikes at the beginning of January, and senior government figures have become increasingly gloomy about the prospect of breaking the deadlock before the election.
Late last year ministers gave up their refusal to put more money on the table and re-entered negotiations with junior doctors, who had initially wanted a 35 per cent pay rise. The government increased the existing 9 per cent offer by a further 3 per cent, but talks broke down.
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Ministers are said to have been “burned” by the decision to call more strikes when they had been willing to offer more and asked the BMA to show it was willing to be “reasonable”. However, after two rounds of inconclusive “talks about talks”, further strikes were called.
More than 1.1 million hospital appointments have been cancelled so far. Analysis by The Times shows this is equivalent to 7.2 per cent of all planned appointments and operations actually carried out last year.
In 24 hospital trusts, the number of cancellations is equal to more than 10 per cent of all planned appointments and operations actually carried out, rising to 29 per cent in the Royal Free Hospital in London.
However, on the Isle of Wight NHS trust cancellations amounted to just 0.3 per cent of annual planned care, with 26 hospitals cancelling below 4 per cent of routine activity.
Cancellations in last month’s unprecedented six-day walkout were the equivalent of more than 20 per cent of monthly planned care at nine hospitals, rising to 62 per cent at the Royal Free.
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Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of the hospitals’ group NHS Providers, said: “Disruption across trusts can vary due to a number of factors, including the proportion of striking staff and the availability of temporary staff cover”.
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For example, hospitals with busy A&E departments might have to cancel more routine care to ensure patients’ safety, while community trusts employ fewer junior doctors so face less disruption.
Hartley said that a full walkout with no safety exemptions this weekend means “disruption to services will be felt far and wide”. He added: “Many patients in pain and distress will bit hit with delays to planned care and treatment.”
He warned of “long-lasting ramifications” and said hospital bosses were “dreading” the strike. He said: “This prolonged industrial dispute is rapidly draining staff morale, the lifeblood of the NHS. They are pulling out all the stops to bear down on care backlogs but these walkouts are making this a near-impossible task.”
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Sir Stephen Powis, the medical director of NHS England, said: “The NHS is under huge strain trying to mitigate the impact of these latest strikes during one of the most difficult times of the year.”
The action by junior doctors comes after a year of walkouts from consultants, nurses and other staff. Powis said: “It’s not possible to have one in every ten days affected by strikes for over a year without it having a huge impact on services, patients, their families, and staff.”
The Royal Free said its cancellation figures included care such as obstetrics, orthopaedic follow-up appointments, dialysis and chemotherapy, which were not included in routine treatment figures. It said its own figures showed 87 per cent of all appointments and procedures went ahead during strike periods.
A spokeswoman said: “Careful consideration is always given to every patient, with the most urgent appointments and procedures always given priority. Those which need to be cancelled are rescheduled as quickly as possible.”
Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, said that “no one should underestimate the impact these strikes have”, adding that the BMA “refused to put our offer to their members”.
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The BMA blamed the government for not making a “credible pay offer”, saying: “Junior doctors are trained to deliver high quality care, but that care is impossible to give when they are exhausted, demoralised, and working in an NHS that is chronically underfunded and understaffed.”
