We write as the Chief Executives of ten of the largest research and teaching hospitals in England ahead of the 96-hours of industrial action by junior doctors scheduled for 11th – 15th April.
Our organisations collectively care for over 16 million patients a year, and as major teaching centres in our regions, employ around 12,500 junior doctors, around one in six of all those currently in training. Junior doctors comprise more than half of the medical workforce in our trusts.
The impact of these strikes on the safety and care of patients
While colleagues across our organisations will do everything in their power to maintain patient safety, the impact of these strikes on patient care will be extensive, and on a scale significantly beyond that of previous rounds of industrial action.
These strikes are 24 hours longer than March’s action, and directly follow the long Easter weekend. The strikes cover the period of school holidays when many medical staff have booked annual leave, some of which is owed to consultants who covered the previous wave of strikes, and some of which has been delayed due to staff delaying taking leave to care for patients throughout and beyond the pandemic.
The cumulative effect of the length and timing of these strikes will therefore be to put huge strain on the availability of staff and beds in our hospitals, meaning delays in care and longer waits even for the most urgent and critically ill patients over this period. In the absence of any agreement to cover emergency care, we anticipate a high level of clinical risk building over the week, including significant risks to the safety of children’s and adult’s emergency services.
To keep our emergency services as safe as possible, we will therefore reluctantly have to reduce or cancel most of our planned work. We estimate we will postpone tens of thousands of clinic appointments, diagnostic tests, and operations in our ten trusts alone – national figures will greatly exceed this. These cancellations will cause significant distress and delays in care for patients, carers and families.
The impact of these strikes on our colleagues
We are now entering the fifth month of industrial action from different staff groups, with each round of strikes having a compound effect and an opportunity cost. The weeks before strikes are absorbed by reorganising services, negotiating staffing cover, making cancellations and rebooking patients. The weeks after are spent catching up on pent-up demand, while trying to allow appropriate rest and recovery for staff. The net effect is that any flexibility and space to do the work of reducing waiting lists and improving care for the future is lost.
Sustained industrial action also puts extraordinary pressure on all groups of staff, exacerbating challenges of morale, and straining the good relationships and teamworking that are fundamental to delivering quality care, now and in the future.
The need for urgent resolution
The need to maintain safety, maximise bed capacity in advance of the long weekend and ensure we can contact patients ahead of their appointments will require us to begin to make cancellations from early in the week of 3rd April. The impact on patients and risks to safety are real, and time is running short.
We therefore call on government and unions to do all in their power to seek the common ground that will enable suspension of this strike action and allow negotiations to resume.
Issued on behalf of the Shelford Group Chief Executives:
Roland Sinker, Chief Executive, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Professor Ian Abbs, Chief Executive, Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
Professor Tim Orchard, Chief Executive, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
Professor Clive Kay, Chief Executive, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Gill Heaton, Acting Chief Executive, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust
Dame Jackie Daniel, Chief Executive, Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Professor Meghana Pandit, Chief Executive, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Kirsten Major, Chief Executive, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Jonathan Brotherton, Chief Executive, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust
Professor David Probert, Chief Executive, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
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About the Shelford Group
The Shelford Group is a collaboration between ten of the largest teaching and research NHS hospital trusts in England.
These ten NHS trusts provide a comprehensive range of services from community care for local populations, to highly specialised care for patients nationwide. Together they account for over £17 billion of the NHS budget, employ over 170,000 staff and account for almost two thirds of the country’s clinical research infrastructure.