Junior doctors maintain pressure on British government

Junior doctors across England have kept up pressure on the British government as their all-out strike over a new contract continues for a second day.

The presence of more consultants on the wards means hospitals appear to have coped well during the strike, though some said they were feeling the strain in terms of cancelled operations.

Over the last two days, hospitals have said they were managing patient numbers in A&E, with some even saying it was quiet, suggesting the public has heeded the warning to stay away unless necessary.

Hospitals will now begin the work of rearranging appointments for thousands of patients who had operations and clinic visits cancelled due to the action.

Figures compiled by NHS England suggest that - for a second day - 78 per cent of junior doctors who were due to be working did not report for duty.

About 80 per cent of all junior doctors (45,000 out of 54,000 across England) are members of the British Medical Association (BMA), which is staging the strike.

On Wednesday the head of the BMA's junior doctors' committee, Johann Malawana, again called for health secretary Jeremy Hunt to lift his threat to impose the new contract on doctors.

Anne Rainsberry, national incident director for NHS England, said: "We're not going to pretend the last two days have been easy but the NHS has remained open for business for patients. We ask the public to continue to use it wisely while the action is ongoing.

“The health service has coped admirably to date thanks to extensive planning and the exhaustive efforts of other staff.

“However, the strike has undoubtedly increased pressure on a service already facing increasing demand and has led to the highly regrettable cancellation of needed care for well over 100,000 patients.”

Corbyn support

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he was proud to join junior doctors in a demonstration outside the department of health on Tuesday night.

He tweeted: “Today is the second day of the #juniordoctors’ strike. Yesterday I was proud to join their demo.”

The strikes are the first time doctors have stopped providing emergency care in the history of the NHS.

On Tuesday night Mr Hunt, who has admitted that being health secretary is probably his “last big job in politics”, said the BMA had not been prepared to negotiate.

He has said the Government will not be blackmailed over the deal. He told BBC Newsnight: “Many doctors don’t understand the contents of the new contract.”

PA