Patients urged to still use the NHS during strike by resident doctors

People have been urged to come forward for help from the NHS for urgent and life-threatening problems during the five-day strike by resident doctors.

The strike runs from 7am, Wednesday 17 December until 7am, Monday 22 December.

NHS England said it was “really important that patients who need urgent medical care care continue to come forward as normal, especially in emergency and serious life-threatening cases”. Patients should also attend planned appointments if they have not been contacted already about the need to reschedule. For more information about how the health service will manage the strikes please visit: NHSE Q&A

BMA members rejected an appeal from Wes Streeting to postpone the strikes until January. The government had also offered a non-pay deal that would have increased the number of training places. The Health and Social Care Secretary called it ‘unconscionable’ for the strike to take place with increasing numbers of people in hospital with flu.  The BMA said Wes Streeting should be in no doubt “just how badly he had fumbled his opportunity to end industrial action”.