\n Resident doctors walked out at 7am on Tuesday morning and will go on strike until 6.59am next Monday due to an ongoing dispute between the BMA and the Government about pay and working conditions.\n<\/p>\n
\n A GWH spokesperson said: \u201cOur priority is to deliver as much safe patient care as possible, but we expect this period of industrial action to significantly disrupt our activity.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe have been planning for this period of extended disruption, but we expect our services to be busy throughout the days leading up to, during and after the planned industrial action.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cOur services will only operate where it is safe to do so, and therefore the industrial action means that it will be necessary for us to cancel some appointments.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cAll the affected patients will be contacted at the earliest opportunity. \u201cIf we need to cancel appointments, we will contact those affected directly.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cShould patients not hear from us, the appointment is still planned to go ahead and they should attend as normal.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cDue to the disruption, we expect much longer than usual waiting times, and it is always best in the first instance to use NHS 111 online to find the most appropriate healthcare option.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt may be possible to see or speak to someone quicker by going through NHS 111 than by coming to hospital.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cPeople will be seen if they attend our Emergency Department or Urgent Treatment Centre, however it may take longer than usual. \u201cIf it is necessary to use our services, please be patient \u2013 our staff will be working extremely hard to see everyone as quickly as they can.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis dispute is a matter between the Government and British Medical Association; however, we know that it addresses issues of real concern. We continue to hope that a resolution is reached soon.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Health Secretary Wes Streeting had hoped to avoid strikes by offering a deal that would have seen resident doctors 35.2 per cent better off than they were four years ago.\n<\/p>\n
\n In response, Dr Jack Fletcher, chairman of the British Medical Association\u2019s resident doctors committee, accused the Government of watering the deal down at the last minute, adding: \u201cResident doctors are as keen as he is to bring an end to the strikes, but his Government needs to put an offer on the table which doesn\u2019t change at the last minute.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Resident doctors walked out at 7am on Tuesday morning and will go on strike until 6.59am next Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-519007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}