Mackey ‘risking safety’ with tough line on strikes, says BMA

NHS England’s instruction not to cancel planned care during the upcoming resident doctors strike risks harming patient safety, the British Medical Association has warned.

In a letter to NHS England chief executive Sir Jim Mackey, the union argued the approach was “not only causing frustration and confusion to hospital leaders, but will put patients at risk”.

But Sir Jim has told HSJ that trusts, along with NHSE, should decide what was cancelled, rather than the British Medical Association.

Sir Jim said: “I do not accept it is necessary or acceptable to take this approach. If a diagnostic or outpatient clinic, or an elective procedure, has been booked, it should go ahead unless the BMA can present a credible argument as to why it was clinically necessary, but now is not.”

The letter, from BMA council chair Tom Dolphin and deputy Emma Runswick, said: “Your decision to instruct hospitals to run non-urgent planned care stretches safe staffing far too thinly, and risks not only patient safety in urgent and emergency situations, but in planned care, too.

“It also appears designed to lead to far more late, same-day cancellations for patients. Consultants cannot safely provide elective care and cover for residents at the same time.

“We are aware that many hospital leaders are equally worried about this new change in policy from NHSE, which is starkly different from how services were planned during industrial action under the previous government, and different from all the agreements we have reached with NHSE since 2015.”

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Source: HSJ, 21 July 2025