Seven-day deceptions at the heart of the junior doctors’ strike
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Version 0 of 1. The reporting of the doctors’ strike continues to be sensational and inaccurate. This week’s strike has been widely described in the media as a 48-hour withdrawal of emergency care by junior doctors. The withdrawal is actually between the hours of 8am and 5pm on 26 and 27 April, as your main report says (NHS strike to go ahead as Hunt rejects compromise, 25 April). On those two days, the clinical care of patients and the emergency provision through A&E will be provided by consultants. As a consultant, I will be on the wards and providing all the medical care that is usually provided by junior doctors under my supervision. It could be argued that the medical care will be of at least the standard usually provided, or even a higher standard since, by definition, consultants have more experience than junior doctors. What will suffer is administration work, meetings and routine planned outpatient care where it is provided by junior doctors. The government continues to refuse to negotiate with doctors (not the other way round) and it appears that this has become a personal issue for Jeremy Hunt which he is intent on winning irrespective on the effect it has on the public. The British Medical Association has been painted as a militant body trying to bring the government down. Doctors are probably the least militant workforce in the country (evidenced by the absence of strikes over the years), so a strike over this issue needs to be taken seriously. Mr Hunt has misrepresented the evidence for seven-day work and the risks to patients who present at weekends or out of hours. I haven’t yet found a consultant who does not support the junior doctors in their dispute with Mr Hunt. I believe that the public will also continue to support the doctors as long as the information they are given is accurate and not distorted to sensationalise the issues.Dr Michael MaierLondon • In rejecting the suggestion to pilot the introduction of the new contract for junior doctors, Jeremy Hunt reiterates his mantra that spreading the current resources more thinly over seven days will address the “weekend effect”. The apparent increase in 30-day mortality of patients admitted at the weekend, if genuine, is likely to be multifactorial, and there is certainly no evidence that a shortage of junior doctors is one of those factors. It would be comforting to believe that Mr Hunt is just stupid, and unable to understand the available evidence. Sadly, I suspect that this is just another example of a politician hoping that if you tell the same lie often enough, people will believe it. In which case, he has miscalculated badly.Dr Bob BuryLeeds • I have been a non-executive of a health authority, a hospital chaplain, a patient and a carer. I am saddened that doctors should use patient dependency on their professions as an industrial bargaining chip for their own pay and conditions of service. This undermines the whole value system of so-called “care”, and the ethos and training of doctors in this country. Those responsible for negotiating a way out of this dispute, on both the government and the BMA side, have evidently failed and should be removed from their positions. Let someone else do what they have failed to do and let them hang their heads in shame. Let junior doctors no longer use such phrases as “the last thing we want to do is to put patient care at risk”. They clearly don’t mean it. If it truly were the “last thing”, they wouldn’t use patients as pawns in their strikes. As a country, we need to face the underlying need for better resources, training, and support for and within our health and social “care” services. Both sides should now regroup with a broader agenda and a shared concern that transcends their dogmas and posturing. If all they can do is block each other, they should remove themselves completely from our National Health Service. Patients and staff both deserve better treatment than this.Rev Canon Robin MorrisonPencoedtre, Wales • We have read with interest correspondence (Letters, 14 April) and your report on the doctors dispute (Doctors’ strike must be defeated, says Hunt, 26 April). Moving to a seven-day NHS without proportionately increasing staff levels and resources seems to be the wrong strategy. Some years ago we completed a study of “quality of working life” in a hospital during a period of financial duress and staff shortages which resulted in a long-hours culture, overwork, workplace stress and poor quality of life at work and at home. This disproportionately impacted on staff with family or caring responsibilities, especially women. From this perspective, the issue is not whether the BMA’s dispute is justified, but rather surprise that it has not happened earlier; and that it hasn’t also happened among other categories of staff. Dr David Etherington, Professor Suzan Lewis and Dr Ian RoperMiddlesex University • It is amazing how skilfully the government has cynically linked the junior doctors’ contract with the idea of a seven-day NHS. These professionals already work seven days. It’s nothing to do with them. If there really were a plan to provide a seven-day service, this would require a huge injection of money to engage more consultants and other health professionals to put on weekend operating lists and outpatient clinics along with all the backup services in x-ray departments and all the laboratories. Perhaps I’m being a little too cynical, but I suspect that as soon as the politicians defeat the doctors, any mention of a seven-day service will mysteriously fade from view.Dr Maureen TilfordNorwich • Jeremy Hunt is adamant about keeping his party’s election promise about a seven-day NHS. If only they’d been as firm about sticking to the previous manifesto commitment about no more top-down reorganisation. That lasted about 10 minutes. Just over two years ago all the pre-2010 election speeches and promises were purged from the party’s website, but happily – so far – they haven’t worked out a way of purging memories or the internet.Judith MartinWinchester • Jeremy Hunt said: “No trade union has the right to veto a manifesto promise voted for by the British people.” He should remember that more than 60% of the British people did not vote for his and David Cameron’s Conservative party.Nancy ShieldsLondon • Jeremy Hunt might feel that confrontation with the junior doctors and the BMA is his Margaret Thatcher “miners’ moment”. Thatcher was successful and today we have no miners or mines. If Hunt is successful, can we look forward to no doctors, hospitals or GP surgeries?Jill Thompson (retired GP)Bramcote, Nottinghamshire |