\n<\/p>\n
NHS bosses and the British Medical Association are accusing each other of endangering patients during the ongoing resident doctors\u2019 strike.<\/p>\n
Their war of words centres on \u201cderogations\u201d, local agreements under which doctors who have joined the strike can cross picket lines to provide clinical care in a hospital.<\/p>\n
Thousands of resident \u2013 formerly junior \u2013 doctors in England are nearing the end of a five-day stoppage, part of their campaign for a 29% pay rise, which ends at 7am on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The escalation of the resident doctors\u2019 pay dispute comes as it emerged that nurses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have voted to reject their 3.6% pay award for this year.<\/p>\n
Their decision, revealed in a survey run by the Royal College of Nursing seeking members\u2019 views on what the union had called a \u201cgrotesque\u201d award, makes it more likely that the NHS in different parts of the UK could face industrial action over pay by various groups of staff later this year.<\/p>\n
Well-placed sources say the results of the union\u2019s online survey of 345,000 members in the three countries, which is due later this week, will show a \u201cclear\u201d rejection of the 3.6% uplift.<\/p>\n
The BMA and NHS England have become embroiled in a disagreement over the circumstances in which the doctors\u2019 union agrees to a request by senior doctors locally to grant a \u201cderogation\u201d.<\/p>\n
NHS sources claim the BMA is taking an \u201cincreasingly hardline approach\u201d to such requests. In one case the BMA refused a plea for a resident doctor \u2013 one below the level of consultant \u2013 to return to Milton Keynes university hospital to help staff a prostate cancer biopsy service.<\/p>\n
The union declined the request because it judged that there was no urgent clinical need for the doctor to return to work, in line with its policy that derogations should be for emergency situations only.<\/p>\n
NHS England says the BMA had by Sunday rejected 18 requests for derogations during the strike \u2013 the 12th involving training-grade doctors since 2023 \u2013 and granted nine.<\/p>\n
An NHS spokesperson said: \u201cDerogation requests for resident doctors to work in exceptional circumstances are being made by the most senior clinical teams on the ground, and delays or refusals by the British Medical Association questions their integrity and risks patient safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the BMA told members via social media on Sunday that it had received 47 requests and as a result agreed that 16 resident doctors, from a total of 125 the NHS asked for, could break the strike and return to work. For example, over the weekend a doctor went back in to help staff the neonatal intensive care unit at Nottingham city hospital while three others provided cover overnight at the Northern general hospital in Sheffield.<\/p>\n
The union claimed NHS chiefs were asking for too many derogations because they had failed to ensure that some hospitals had enough medics on duty to cover for striking resident colleagues.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, often due to poor timing of requests \u2026 there have been some situations where patients\u2019 safety has been at risk, with not enough doctors to ensure emergency care, leading to last-minute derogations,\u201d it said in a social media post.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese hospitals have a lot to answer for, to the resident doctors, and the patients they have failed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior NHS officials say that fewer resident doctors have joined the ongoing strike compared with the 11 walkouts that junior doctors staged in 2023 and 2024 and also that more planned hospital activity \u2013 operations and outpatient appointments \u2013 had gone ahead this time round.<\/p>\n
One well-placed source estimated that whereas about 80% of eligible doctors took part in the previous strikes, the figure appears to have dropped to about 60% in this stoppage.<\/p>\n
\u201cParticipation is lower this time. Some resident doctors are less comfortable going on strike this time round, after the 22% pay rise over two years they got last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s less sympathy among other NHS staff for resident doctors this time. And there\u2019s frustration about how quickly they went on strike so soon after their significant pay rise.\u201d<\/p>\n
The BMA will try to increase the pressure on Wes Streeting, the health secretary, on Tuesday by picketing King George hospital in Ilford, the main hospital that provides care to people in his Ilford North constituency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NHS bosses and the British Medical Association are accusing each other of endangering patients during the ongoing resident doctors\u2019 strike. Their war of words centres on \u201cderogations\u201d, local agreements under which doctors who have joined the strike can cross picket lines to provide clinical care in a hospital. Thousands of resident \u2013 formerly junior \u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[5183,4585,366,1229,2252,1834,253,1349],"class_list":{"0":"post-13020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-bma","9":"tag-chiefs","10":"tag-doctors","11":"tag-nhs","12":"tag-patient","13":"tag-row","14":"tag-safety","15":"tag-strike"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}