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Junior doctors strike for third time over new contract - live updates | Junior doctors strike for third time over new contract - live updates |
(35 minutes later) | |
11.03am GMT | |
11:03 | |
Kailash Chand, deputy chair of the BMA, has written for the Guardian’s Healthcare network, accusing Jeremy Hunt of “misusing statistics as a way to impose the new junior doctor contract”. The health secretary, he says, would be in front of a fitness to practise tribunal if he were a medic. | |
Chand writes: | |
Hunt has managed to insult and alienate NHS staff across the board. To lose a large swath of junior doctors in the early stages of their careers would be a disaster for the NHS. And the number of GPs and consultants who are considering retiring early is staggeringly high and a huge worry for the NHS and patient care. The health service could be left with a shortage of clinicians, with the remaining doctors spread too thinly. We will have fewer staff in an even less safe NHS. | |
10.55am GMT | |
10:55 | |
Aisha Gani | |
Junior doctors in East London are in high spirits but adamant they must win against the health secretary Jeremy Hunt on the contracts issue. They pounded the pavement in Whitechapel handing out leaflets to passersby. | |
Jackie Applebee is a GP and has been active in support of the junior doctors strike. She said: | |
I think it’s really important they win this dispute. It’s outrageous the government is implying it’s a pay rise when the number of unsocial hours is going up. | |
Jackie a GP fears clocks are turning back. As a junior doctor in late 80s she worked 100hr weeks, which was unsafe pic.twitter.com/prVow193te | |
Applebee said Saturdays will be treated like a Wednesday and added the problem was that “the safety mechanisms are going to be relaxed”. | |
“There is a workforce shortage and so more rotated and more tired,” she said. | |
She said she was fearful the clocks would be turned back for junior doctors to how it was for her when she was a junior doctor in the late 1980s. | |
It was usual to do Monday to Friday and often doctors spent every third night on call. If you were on call on the weekend you would be covering from a normal day on Friday until the end of a normal day on Monday. | |
There was very little sleep while on obstetrics - there could be a beep anytime. | |
Applebee said she often did a 100 hour week and feared current doctors will face the same. | |
I remember how tired I would be and we risk going back to that. | |
There’s a workforce crisis and doctors are going to Australia and GPs are retiring and people aren’t going into this field. | |
Who will look after us? The public need to understand this. The message to the public is the government is doing this to junior doctors and if they win they will do he same to nurses and GPs, going towards a system like (the United States of) America while America is moving away from the system. | |
We are throwing the baby out with the bathwater and we’ll end up with a two tiered NHS. | |
Standing in the rain in his scrubs, Edward, who has been a paediatrician for eleven years, said it would soon be time to escalate action. “We have to win” he said. | |
Edward has been a junior doctor for 11 years and is a paediatrician. He said it was time to escalate action pic.twitter.com/aChSARteoH | |
10.46am GMT | |
10:46 | |
Dr Ros Kings, on the picket line outside Chelsea and Westminster, told Philip Mansell that Jeremy Hunt should negotiate further with the BMA. | |
She said: | |
Junior doctors are vulnerable because of our yearly contract. If this contract is imposed it could be used as a lever and it could have a knock on affect on other roles in the NHS. There’s no opposition to a seven-day NHS if it’s thought through and staffed properly. | |
Dr Ros Kings feels that an imposed contract could be used as a "lever" #JuniorDoctorsStrike @Haroon_Siddique pic.twitter.com/OaWfmmSyTr | |
10.42am GMT | |
10:42 | |
Striking junior doctors in Bishop’s Stortford are running free CPR training sessions for the public today and tomorrow. | |
Junior doctor Zohra Qureshi told the Herts and Essex Observer: | |
We feel we still want to do something worthwhile even though we are not at our jobs. | |
We are not striking because we want a free day off, we are not being paid. We want to do something to raise the issue and to give something back to the community. | |
10.38am GMT | |
10:38 | |
Here’s a video of junior doctors in east London. | |
10.37am GMT | |
10:37 | |
A “blue light” candle lit vigil will be held outside Downing Street this evening from 8.30pm “to remind the government and public that the NHS is already 24/7”. | |
It has been organised by by Dr Julia Prague, a medical registrar in London who qualified eight years ago, to coincide with the strike. She said: | |
I organised this themed vigil because the NHS is already 24/7, providing high quality care at the point of entry, and despite this the NHS is being left out in the cold by the government: underfunded and undervalued in the face of political point scoring and game playing, which is demoralising doctors and other front line staff. Imposition of an unsafe and unfair contract will only make matters worse.” | |
Staff and patients will stand together, united at dark, from 8.30pm to 10.45pm, holding blue candle lights while the National Health Singers choir sings Yours, an anthem calling for protection of the NHS. | |
10.28am GMT | 10.28am GMT |
10:28 | 10:28 |
The strike in England – and the prospect of junior doctors leaving the UK for jobs abroad because of concerns over the new contract – may be an opportunity for health boards in Wales. | The strike in England – and the prospect of junior doctors leaving the UK for jobs abroad because of concerns over the new contract – may be an opportunity for health boards in Wales. |
Doctors at the Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board – which covers Swansea, Port Talbot, Neath, Bridgend – have contributed to a video inviting professionals to re-locate to south Wales rather than New South Wales, in Australia. | Doctors at the Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board – which covers Swansea, Port Talbot, Neath, Bridgend – have contributed to a video inviting professionals to re-locate to south Wales rather than New South Wales, in Australia. |
They don’t focus on the strike but extol the virtues of the region: the lovely beaches, countryside, affordability and the job and training opportunities. | They don’t focus on the strike but extol the virtues of the region: the lovely beaches, countryside, affordability and the job and training opportunities. |
Here’s the video: | Here’s the video: |
So far it has been viewed 70,000 times since being launched on Friday. | So far it has been viewed 70,000 times since being launched on Friday. |
The Labour-controlled Welsh government is, of course, more nakedly political. It has been keen to point out that there is no strike in Wales. At the end of last year it launched a recruitment drive pointedly aimed at disillusioned English trainees. | The Labour-controlled Welsh government is, of course, more nakedly political. It has been keen to point out that there is no strike in Wales. At the end of last year it launched a recruitment drive pointedly aimed at disillusioned English trainees. |
10.05am GMT | 10.05am GMT |
10:05 | 10:05 |
Mark Oliver | Mark Oliver |
There were around 20 doctors at picket lines on different sides of the road outside King’s College hospital in Camberwell, south London, this morning. | There were around 20 doctors at picket lines on different sides of the road outside King’s College hospital in Camberwell, south London, this morning. |
They were listening to Sweet Alabama to keep up spirits. | They were listening to Sweet Alabama to keep up spirits. |
In the walk-in blood test department it took just two minutes to see a nurse. “It seems less busy today at the moment,” one of the nurses said, adding “you did well” as they put a little bandage on my arm. | In the walk-in blood test department it took just two minutes to see a nurse. “It seems less busy today at the moment,” one of the nurses said, adding “you did well” as they put a little bandage on my arm. |
9.52am GMT | 9.52am GMT |
09:52 | 09:52 |
It’s a dog’s life being a junior doctor. | It’s a dog’s life being a junior doctor. |
Buster supports #JuniorDoctorsStrike @Bath_Doctors and he'd like @Jeremy_Hunt to listen before he gets any wetter pic.twitter.com/fOxjymD363 | Buster supports #JuniorDoctorsStrike @Bath_Doctors and he'd like @Jeremy_Hunt to listen before he gets any wetter pic.twitter.com/fOxjymD363 |
9.49am GMT | 9.49am GMT |
09:49 | 09:49 |
This tweet is from the chair of the BMA junior doctors committee. | This tweet is from the chair of the BMA junior doctors committee. |
UCH this morning in the wet weather. Lots of support from public and staff pic.twitter.com/M9Aif1KcaQ | UCH this morning in the wet weather. Lots of support from public and staff pic.twitter.com/M9Aif1KcaQ |
9.47am GMT | 9.47am GMT |
09:47 | 09:47 |
This is a succinct summary of why the junior doctors are striking: | This is a succinct summary of why the junior doctors are striking: |
Quick reminder as to why we are striking (via BMA) pic.twitter.com/NKBeomPT9l | Quick reminder as to why we are striking (via BMA) pic.twitter.com/NKBeomPT9l |
9.44am GMT | 9.44am GMT |
09:44 | 09:44 |
It’s no surprise to find veteran Labour MP Dennis Skinner, one of the hardest working politicians, on the picket line. | It’s no surprise to find veteran Labour MP Dennis Skinner, one of the hardest working politicians, on the picket line. |
84 and on the doctors' picket line. Got to love Dennis Skinner for his commitment pic.twitter.com/ucX7VellIX | 84 and on the doctors' picket line. Got to love Dennis Skinner for his commitment pic.twitter.com/ucX7VellIX |