Cancer and maternity patients at risk if junior doctors strike in January, NHS bosses warn

Patients have been harmed as a result of doctors striking this year, and others needing time-critical treatment will be at risk during next month’s walkout in England, hospital bosses have said.

Cancer patients and women having induced or caesarean section births will be in danger of damage to their health unless junior doctors in those areas of care abandon their plans to strike for six days in January, they said.

People awaiting urgent eye surgery risk permanent sight loss unless the British Medical Association (BMA) lets junior doctors keep working in that area, according to NHS Employers, which represents health service trusts in England.

Its intervention comes amid mounting concern in the NHS that it may prove impossible to maintain patient safety in high-risk, time-sensitive areas of treatment when tens of thousands of junior doctors stage what will be the longest strike in NHS history from 3 January, when hospitals are facing what is often the service’s busiest week of the year.

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Source: The Guardian, 21 December 2023