Junior doctors strike: GMC warns hospitals will 'struggle' during historic walk-out

The General Medical Council (GMC) has warned hospitals will "struggle" to cope if junior doctors take part in the planned strike next week. Doctors below consultant level are walking out over a new contract that health secretary Jeremy Hunt plans to impose from August.

The industrial action is unprecedented as it will be the first full-scale walkout by doctors in the NHS's 68-year history. The British Medical Association (BMA) argues the new contract would cuts to pay and longer hours that will compromise the safety of both doctors and patients.

But on Tuesday (19 April) the GMC urged those intending to down stethoscopes to consider the wider impact. "The GMC cannot second guess the situation facing each doctor in training in England – that must be a matter for individual judgement," the body said in its updated guidance.

"But given the scale and repeated nature of what is proposed, we believe that, despite everyone's best efforts, some hospitals may struggle to cope. In these cases where local circumstances are particularly acute, the right option may be not to take action that results in the withdrawal of services for patients."

The BMA has, on Tuesday, 19 April, written to the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, with a clear offer to avert next week's industrial action:

19 April 2016

Dear Secretary of State,

With a week to go to the start of the first full walkout of doctors in this country, I am writing to make a clear offer in a bid to avert industrial action. Simply put, if the Government will lift the imposition, junior doctors will call off next week's strike action on 26<sup>th and 27<sup>th April.

The imposition of this contract is tremendously damaging to the morale of junior doctors and medical students and has resulted in a complete breakdown of trust between doctors and the Government. It is this decision which has led to the current, lamentable situation, the resolution to which is now squarely in your hands.

As you know, no junior doctor wants to have to take industrial action, but they have been left without further recourse. Junior doctors who I meet up and down the country are saying that they will not accept a contract being forced on them, a contract which the Government's own equality impact assessment acknowledges to be discriminatory to women.

I believe that your decision in February to give up on negotiations and impose a contract, reiterated in the House of Commons yesterday, marks a watershed in relations with the profession, but am happy to meet or discuss this offer with you at any time between now and the start of next week's industrial action.

I hope you will give this offer serious consideration and make the right decision for patients, doctors and the long-term future of the NHS.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Johann Malawana
Chair, BMA junior doctors' committee

Last week, professor Sir Bruce Keogh, chief medical director of NHS England, said the strike was a culmination of years of frustration in the health service. "This is a watershed moment for the NHS – and a difficult time for the medical profession," he said.

"The current unrest is not just about contracts, but is the culmination of growing frustration over many years about the difficult conditions in which junior doctors work and train, and about the way that they are treated and valued by the multitude of organisations that constitute the NHS...Whatever the rights and wrongs of this complex dispute, this is a very serious state of affairs."