Doctor strikes ‘deliberately timed to cause havoc’, says NHS chief

Resident doctor strikes have been “deliberately timed to cause havoc”, the head of the NHS has said.

Medics in training across England from the British Medical Association (BMA) have begun the second day of a walkout in a row over pay and jobs.

Sir Jim Mackey, chief executive of NHS England, said that many hospitals had found it “challenging” to fill rotas following the Easter weekend.

Health officials have previously highlighted that the strike will be particularly disruptive because of the action taking place during the Easter break, when many NHS staff will have booked time off with their families.

But Sir Jim said that hospitals were in “as good a place as we could hope” on the first day of the walkout.

“I know today has been tough for staff picking up the strain across the country – and how disruptive and challenging it’s been for many hospitals to manage it and fill their rotas following the Easter weekend,” he said in a letter to healthcare leaders on Tuesday evening.

“We cannot forget this action has been deliberately timed to cause havoc.

“There’s a long way to go, but it looks like we’re in as good a place as we could hope on day one.

“I am so grateful to everyone for all you’ve done ahead of today, during today and what you will be doing over the next five plus days to contend with these pressures, maintain services and help keep the show on the road for our patients.”

NHS England has said that it will keep as much pre-planned care running as possible, and patients are urged to attend appointments unless they have been contacted.

Urgent and emergency care will run as usual.

It comes after new YouGov polling found that 55% of British adults oppose resident doctors going on strike.

Some 37% said they support the action, according to the survey of 4,385 adults in Britain.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “People and patients are understandably fed up.”

Elsewhere, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has called for doctors to be banned from striking.

Mrs Badenoch wrote in the Daily Mail that the BMA was “betraying the patients that its members swore to serve”.

Resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, began their 15th strike since 2023 on Tuesday, with cumulative strike costs exceeding £3 billion over three years.

Speaking from a picket line on Tuesday at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, Dr Jack Fletcher, chairman of the BMA resident doctors committee, told the Press Association: “Ultimately the Government needs to move on both jobs and pay to resolve these disputes for not only doctors, but crucially for patients as well.

“I’m genuinely very sorry and it is regrettable that we’re having to take this action and I’m very sorry to patients, however, we feel like we had no choice.”