Junior Doctors’ Strikes
Debate between Sarah Olney and Steve Barclay(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Steve Barclay
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Yes, the Department is working very closely with colleagues in NHS England and across the NHS to mitigate as best we can the impact of the junior doctors’ strike. He is right that we had meaningful and constructive talks with the staff council representing “Agenda for Change” staff. I am very pleased that, as a result of the constructive engagement we had, the NHS staff council was able to recommend that pay award to its members. He is right that that points to the constructive approach that we have taken. We stand ready to have that constructive engagement with junior doctors, recognising the real pressures that the profession has been under. We will mitigate as best we can, but, given the timing over the Easter period, obviously, there is a risk in terms of patient harm. We will do all we can to mitigate that.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
The latest figures from January 2023 showed 7.21 million people waiting for NHS treatment. What impact does the Secretary of State think this strike will have on the extremely hard work that has been done across the NHS to reduce those waiting lists, and what plans does he have to address the impact that the strike will have on waiting lists, if he does not plan to take any action to avoid it?
Steve Barclay
I think we can see what sort of impact it will have from the previous strike, which was over three days and impacted 181,049 appointments. We can see there will be a significant impact. On mitigations, as part of our electives recovery plan, we are doing a range of things, including expanding community diagnostic hubs and the fast-tracking of surgical hubs. The NHS is responding brilliantly with things such as super Saturdays, where teams process higher volumes of treatments, particularly in certain areas. We have the Getting It Right First Time programme, led by Sir Jim Mackey and Professor Tim Briggs, which is looking at how we embed best practice. Having hit the first interim milestone of our recovery plan in the summer, the two-year wait, we are now focused on the 78-week wait target and working our way through that.