Junior doctors start two-day strike

Staff at Queen Alexandra Hospital, in Cosham, joined colleagues nationwide in highlighting concerns junior doctors have over a new contract.

The group had pickets showing messages of ‘NHS SOS’ and ‘tired doctors make mistakes.’

Starting at 8am, the protest is set to continue until 8am on Friday morning as junior doctors fight against a new contract being proposed by the NHS.

Hannah Morgan, from Havant, is a GP in training and was at the protest this morning.

She said: ‘This is the last thing that any of us want to do. We are trying to put more pressure on the NHS by holding the strike for 48 hours.

‘We want to have a safe NHS for our patients. The contract they are trying to impose is untested and they haven’t worked out of there’s going to be enough staff.’

A spokeswoman from Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs QA Hospital, said they have rescheduled nine in-patient and 18 out-patient procedures due to take place today. She added eight in-patient and nine out-patient procedures due to happen tomorrow have also been rescheduled.