Strikes just betray patients

I FEEL desperately sad about the way the junior doctors’ strike has unfolded.

On the one hand, they are entirely correct: the contract is being imposed only because Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is determined to deliver the Tories’ manifesto pledge to roll out a seven-day NHS, yet he is is refusing to allocate extra resources to do this.

Instead, Mr Hunt is simply trying to spread the existing workforce thinner over seven days. It is flawed and badly thought out.

I’m sorry to say it, but we need to accept that some specialities really do not need to provide seven-day cover.

While it might be nice, the vast majority of people simply do not need to have a dermatology outpatient appointment on a Sunday afternoon — and in my experience, many patients are very reluctant to make a weekend appointment when it is offered.

Rather than promising the same old service but on more days, we should be prioritising the areas where people are sickest and are therefore in most need.

The Health Secretary’s plans fail to do this, and he’s wrong to push through the changes to the junior doctors’ contract just so he can roll out this plan.

However, another series of strikes by junior doctors will achieve nothing. The Government isn’t going to do a U-turn.

Striking now only risks alienating and endangering the public. It is, as senior doctors of the Royal Medical Colleges said this week, entirely disproportionate.

There’s no easy answer here, but standing on a picket line outside a hospital while there are patients desperate for your help inside is certainly not the solution.