Please see below response from the Health and Social
Care Secretary, , to the Urgent Question,
17.04.23: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social
Care if he will make a statement on the impact of the junior
doctors’ strikes and what steps he is taking to prevent further
strike action in the NHS.
Mr Speaker, I’m grateful to the Honourable Member for his
question.
Turning to the first part of the question, we will not have firm
figures on the number of patient appointments postponed until
later today because the NHS guidance has been to allow Trusts a
full working day to collate the data on those impacts.
We know from the previous three-day strike that 175,000 hospital
appointments were disrupted and 28,000 staff were off. And
initial estimates that 285,000 appointments and procedures being
rescheduled. But it’s premature to set out the full impact of the
Junior Doctor’s strike until we have that data but I’m happy to
commit to providing an update for the House in a Written
Ministerial Statement tomorrow.
I will also – in the coming days – update the House on the very
significant progress that has been made on the successful action
taken over recent months to clear significant numbers of 78-week
waits which resulted from the Covid pandemic.
Mr Speaker, it is regrettable that the BMA Junior Doctors
committee chose the period immediately after Easter to cause
maximum disruption, extending their strike to 96 hours and asking
their members not to inform hospitals whether they intended to go
on strike which made contingency planning much more difficult.
Mr Speaker, let me put on record huge thanks to all those NHS
staff including nurses and consultants who stepped up to provide
cover for patients last week. I recognise that there are
significant pressures on Junior Doctors both from the period of
the pandemic and from dealing with the backlogs that has caused.
And I do want to see a deal that increases Junior Doctor’s pay
and a deal that fixes many of the non-pay frustrations that they
articulate. But the Junior Doctors Committee co-chairs have still
not indicated that they will move substantially from their 35%
pay demand which is not affordable, and indeed, not supported on
the bench opposite.
Mr Speaker, turning to the second part of his question on the
steps we’re taking to prevent further strike action in the NHS.
We have negotiated a deal with the NHS Staff Council. It is an
offer we arrived at together through constructive and meaningful
negotiations and one on which people are still voting, with a
decision of the NHS Staff Council currently due on 2 May. On
which the largest union – Unison - has voted in favour, by a
margin of 74% in favour.
We have agreed a process with trade unions which I am keen to
respect and we should now allow the other trade unions to
complete their ballot ahead of the NHS Staff Council on 2 May.
