Junior doctors at Royal Preston Hospital join national three-day strike as NHS braces itself for mass disruption

The 72-hour walkout, which began on Monday morning (March 13), will see operations and appointments cancelled for thousands of patients as doctors join picket lines outside their hospitals.

More than 100,000 appointments have already been postponed this winter after nurses took strike action in a dispute with the Government over pay, according to NHS figures.

The British Medical Association (BMA) is demanding a substantial pay rise for doctors, with its latest campaign saying junior medics could earn more per hour if they worked in Pret A Manger.

The BMA says junior doctors’ pay has fallen in real terms by 26% since 2008/09 and reversing this would require a 35.3% pay rise.

Professor Stephen Powis, medical director of NHS England, told Times Radio the health service will see “extensive disruption” over the next three days.

He said: “This is likely to be the most disruptive set of industrial action days that we’ve seen all winter.

“Why is that? Well, it’s three days rather than just one day, it involves junior doctors that are a large part of the medical workforce and, of course, work in many healthcare settings, not just hospitals – general practice, mental health trusts and, of course, community settings too – and so it’s likely that we will see that extensive disruption.”

On Friday (March 10), Health Secretary Steve Barclay invited the BMA to talks but the union rejected the idea, saying there were “unacceptable” preconditions.

The preconditions are understood to have included looking at a non-consolidated lump sum payment for last year.

Junior doctors make up around 45% of the NHS’s medical workforce and consultants and other medics have been drafted in to provide strike cover in areas such as A&E.

Prof Powis said cancer care is likely to be affected by the strikes, saying the NHS is doing “everything we can to ensure that urgent cancer procedures go ahead but, unfortunately, even some of those may be affected this week, such is the extent of the disruption that we’re likely to see”.

“If that does occur, we will reschedule people as quickly as possible,” he added.

Earlier, the NHS chief told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the strikes are “likely to be the most severe of all those (strike) days this winter, perhaps even the most severe disruption that we’ve seen of any strike in the NHS during its history”.

Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive NHS Providers, urged the Government and BMA to start negotiations to find a resolution to the dispute.

He said staff have faced enormous challenges in recent years and “pay has not kept up with inflation and the cost of living and we want to make sure that NHS staff are appropriately rewarded and remunerated given the incredible jobs that they all do”.

In its new campaign, the BMA says junior doctors can make more serving coffee than saving patients.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said the comparison is “misleading” as it does not take into account the additional earning capacity and pay progression available to junior doctors.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters on his flight to the US on Sunday it is “very disappointing that the junior doctors’ union are not engaging with the Government”.

It comes as members of several trade unions will strike on Budget day on Wednesday in what will be one of the biggest single days of industrial action for years.