Another junior doctors’ strike is expected to cause delays and cancellations for routine treatment and operations at Nottinghamshire hospitals.
The 24-hour strike will be held next Wednesday, February 10, as medics stage a walk out over a planned new contract proposed by the Government.
It will be the second walk-out following a similar strike on January 12. The action led to roughly one in ten routine surgeries being postponed.
Another walk-out last month was cancelled, but next week’s is currently expected to go ahead.
It will be very busy
Bosses at the trust which runs the QMC and City Hospital are issuing letters to all patients expecting surgery on the date informing them of whether the strike will affect them or not.
A spokesman for the trust: “We are currently working through our plans so we can inform the patients that we have to reschedule.
“It will be very busy, we advise people to only attend A&E in an emergency, people can attend walk in centres or call 111 if it’s not an emergency.”
He added that patients will be informed whether their treatment will be affected early next week.
Treatment at King’s Mill Hospital, near Mansfield, is again also expected to be affected.
What are junior doctors striking about?
The long-running dispute is between the BMA and the government over the planned introduction of a new contract.
There are currently 55,000 junior doctors in England, 38,000 of those are members of the BMA.
The main sticking points are the scrapping of guaranteed pay rises linked with time in the job and the scrapping of unsociable hour pay between 7am and 10pm on every day apart from Sunday.
The BMA argues this will mean junior doctors will get paid less whereas government ministers argue that the increase in basic pay will mean three quarters will actually get paid more.
