NHS junior doctor strikes in Portsmouth: Patients facing  “significant harm and trauma” warns senior medic as Queen Alexandra Hospital remains under critical incident

The NHS is facing the longest strike in their history, as junior doctors hold a six day walk-out which started on Wednesday, December 3. While the NHS has acknowledged it will take weeks for services to catch up after the strikes a senior medic has warned that even the usual winter pressures could cause turbulence to services.

Dr Tim Cooksley, immediate past president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said that patients could face “significant harm and trauma due to delayed ambulance responses”. Writing in the British Medical Journal, Dr Cooksley added: “A continuum of often predictable perfect storms has caused a struggling system to reach collapse.”

Portsmouth’s QA Hospital declared a critical incident on Wednesday, January 3 as it advised people to only go to the Accident and Emergency department if it is an emergency. The scene in Portsmouth has been replicated across the country with more than a dozen hospitals reporting extreme pressure on their emergency services.

Over 20 requests have been made by NHS trusts for the strikers to return to work, a process called derogation. This has caused further tension between the British Medical Association and NHS officials, with the union claiming the NHS are not following the correct derogation process of providing evidence they have exhausted all other staffing sources before requesting a return from the picket line, and are instead responding to political pressure.

An NHS England spokesman said: “Given this period of industrial action coincides with the most difficult time of year for the NHS, it is to be expected that more senior medical leaders will ask their colleagues for allowances to be made to ensure safe levels of cover.”

The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has supported NHS leaders who are asking for doctors to return to work. He said: “It’s absolutely right that NHS leaders, completely independent of Government, are making clinical decisions on the ground. And requesting that extra support where they feel that they need it. Of course they have my backing in doing that.”