Doctors' strike: it's patients who come a distant last

Forget greedy tube drivers striking despite being paid a small fortune and having the kind of holiday entitlement the rest of us can only dream of. Now, it’s one of the most respected groups in society that, under the leadership of militants, is set to strike – junior doctors.
Actually, to be clear, that term doesn’t just refer to the foundation year trainees – the kind you see on Holby City getting bossed around and being given the most pus-filled abscess on the ward to lance, to test their metal. A junior doctor is any doctor on a specialist training path, meaning that most are what we commonly call registrars. It’s anyone from a foundation trainee (FT), to a highly experienced registrar. Thus, in reality, it’s some-one who hasn’t been certified as a consultant yet, even if they have many years of experience. These aren’t the kind of people we can do without. When they strike, it’s a big deal.

When we are told that emergency department gaps in capacity can be easily plugged with staff grade doctors and consultants, I’d doubt it. IT almost certainly won’t be doable without resorting to staff banks and hiring in locums. The cost of the locums to the hospitals might be covered by activity-based income, but it’s not a good deal for the taxpayer. Most importantly, it’s not a good deal for the patients. As for routine hospital care, forget about it: expect appointments and operations to be cancelled up and down the land. The first walkout begins on 1 December, so our lovely doctors have not given hospitals and their patients plenty of warning. Expect to be told, at short notice, that you will have to stay sick and in pain for quite a bit longer than planned. Upset? Get over it: the doctors have a right to protest at their pay-rise of 11%. 3 quarters of them will be better off. Of course they’re entitle to be aghast that, once the new contract is in place, they will get pay increases upon satisfactory completion of training, rather than being guaranteed them for simply being around for a certain length of time. Surely they can’t be expected to see their career and salary progression slowed down by their own choice to take a break (whether to have children or for any other reason) like every other worker?
The truth is, as this guide clearly illustrates, what doctors are going to get is a fair contract. Through talks, it does seem as though the government has made compromises and really tried to listen, as evidenced by a very generous pay-rise indeed. But it is clear that, if a 7-day service is to ever become a reality, the times allocated as ‘unsocial’ will have to be amended to reflect that, and to make the thing affordable. Jeremy Hunt has argued passionately that the disparity in mortality rates between weekdays and weekends is totally unacceptable. Doctors say that they agree, but they have just backed unprecedented strike action to thwart any productive efforts to arrive at a contractual arrangement to suit that vision of a 7-day, consistent service. The British Medical Association, which opposed creation of the NHS in the first place, has shown its continued capacity to undermine any progress. So, when your cancelation letter arrives and you haul yourself up on the battered hip you can’t wait to have replaced, don’t be angry with Jeremy Hunt. Instead, be angry with the BMA and every doctor who voted in favour of striking. If your own doctor was one of them, they just put you a very distant last in their priorities, even below their desire to protect guaranteed pay increases that they don’t have to do anything for