Doctors and other health workers struck together at Barts Health NHS Trust in east London (Picture: Guy Smallman)
Thousands of junior doctors joined hospital consultants on picket lines across England on Wednesday in the first joint strike of its kind.
Health bosses were forced to cancel planned operations and clinics as medics provided only a “Christmas Day” service. Both sets of doctors are fighting the Tories for a settlement that accounts for years of below-inflation pay rise. That would mean an increase of 35 percent.
They rightly insist that without decent pay, highly trained staff will continue to leave the NHS to work privately or abroad–and that this is doing irreversible damage.
The mood among doctors has hardened. It has become clear that the government has no interest in settling the disputes and refuses to talk to the BMA union.
On the picket line at the Royal London hospital, striking junior doctor Michael told Socialist Worker that the mood among his colleagues was “angry and determined”. “The fact that the government has refused to talk to us for 100 days tells you everything you need to know,” he said.
“I have no faith in any politicians anymore. The only people that I trust with the future of the NHS are the people that work in it and the people that use it. That’s all.”
Reflecting on the Tories’ intransigence, Michael said he and his colleagues were “furious”. “We have to hold the government to account for what they are doing to the NHS,” he said. “That means we will keep striking, right up to the general election – and beyond if necessary.”
Striking consultant Kirsteen has worked at the Royal London for 14 years. She says that many patients suffer because there are not enough staff and resources to care for them properly.
“We always struggle to get new equipment and create the new services we need,” the radiology doctor said. “Simply, there’s no money, no physical space, and no trained people.
“That can mean delayed procedures, late diagnosis and too late treatment. It means worse outcomes for our patients.”
Kirsteen says that being unable to give patients the care they need has a terrible effect on doctors’ wellbeing.
“It’s so frustrating,” she said. “Everyday your shoulders sit a little lower because you know everything could be so much better.”
Kirsteen and Micheal both said that being on strike made them feel more positive about the future, and hope that it will impact on “those in power”. That spirit was also among the cleaners, porters, domestics and technicians also striking at the Royal London on Wednesday.
The Unite union members are fighting over pay and safe staffing levels. But they are also raging at hospital trust bosses that have denied the government’s “Covid bonus” to many staff that transferred back to the NHS from outsourcer Serco.
Mary has spent five years as a domestic at the Royal London but isn’t getting the Covid bonus. That’s despite having worked on a dedicated Covid ward during the height of the pandemic.
There she was surrounded by daily suffering and death, but she says the bosses don’t care about that.
“They don’t have a clue about our work, what we do, and they don’t care about us,” she said. “All these people liked to clap us during Covid, but they won’t give us anything now to help us feed our families. I say, shame on you.”
During a loud march around the hospital, porter Charles said that even former Serco workers who got the bonus had joined the strike.
“We are all united, there’s no divide and rule here,” he told Socialist Worker. “Today, it feels like we are speaking with a united voice, and it’s good to be alongside the doctors on strike too.”
Junior doctor Michael echoed that feeling. He said that hospitals are normally very “hierarchical” but the strikes have made a difference.
“I make a point of speaking to everyone I work with on the wards nowadays,” he said. “I talk to the porters and cleaners about their dispute, and they ask me about mine. We are all supportive of one another, and that makes a real difference.”
That spirit of coming together gave everyone at the hospital a lift. And it points to the potential power of health workers when they combine. But it makes it even more tragic that the Unison and RCN unions settled for poor pay deals just as the new fights were starting.
Striking doctors are right to point to a lack of staff being behind the growing crisis in the NHS. Figures this week showed that about 400,000 patients spent 24 hours or more waiting for treatment in an emergency department last year. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) said it was a matter of “national shame” that so many had been left waiting for so long.
It also warned that this winter would see a return to scenes of “trolleys stacked up in corridors” unless urgent action is taken. RCEM president Dr Adrian Boyle said long waits were actively “harmful” to patients, who are “often elderly and vulnerable”. “There is good scientific data that shows that once people spend more than about six hours, and they need to be admitted into hospital, actually their mortality starts to get worse.”
Meanwhile, separate research shows that some patients are waiting up to two and half years for important diagnostic tests, such as ultrasound, MRI and CT scans. People with heart problems are among the worst affected. Examples from NHS trusts included a 49-week wait for an ECG and 475-day wait for an angiography.
Late diagnosis worsens patient outcomes, and can contribute to early death. In both cases, lack of trained staff and facilities are the main reasons for delay. That’s exactly the point made by striking doctors and radiographers.
Both the Tories and Labour are committed to further NHS privatisation. And both say this will improve treatment times and the standard of care for patients. But there is growing evidence that the limited services offered by the private sector is putting peoples’ lives in danger.
A coroner in Norwich has warned that a private hospital is relying on NHS ambulances to transport patients that become seriously unwell while under their care. The warning came after an inquest into a patient who died after a 14-hour wait for an ambulance. They needed to be transported from the private Spire hospital to the NHS-run Norfolk and Norwich university hospital.
The last two years have seen a succession of inquests relating to ambulance delays. But the government takes no action. In the latest case, a senior coroner expressed concerns over Spire hospital’s use of NHS ambulances. It’s the third inquest in the last 12 months where patients have faced delays when being transferred from Spire to the university hospital.
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