Consultants join junior doctors for 72-hour strike

Dozens of junior doctors and consultants gathered outside Bristol Royal Infirmary on Monday morning in a joint strike action over pay and conditions.

Chants of “we will look back in anger, for fair pay” echoed throughout Upper Maudlin Street, as did the almost continuous beeping of passing cars.

This was the seventh round of industrial action organised and carried out by the British Medical Association (BMA) in a nationwide effort to restore pay for both healthcare professions.

It is more than 100 days since the health secretary sat down with BMA leaders for pay talks – and none are planned for the future.

Ministers said this year’s pay rise was a “final and fair” settlement and it met the independent pay review body’s recommendations.

Consultants are being given 6 per cent and junior doctors an average of 8.8 per cent, depending on their level.

Nick Smith is an internal medicine trainee

Joining the picket line was Nick Smith – an internal medicine trainee from Redland who has just completed his fourth year as a junior doctor.

Smith told Bristol24/7 he was “stressed” at how the government has reacted to the continuing strikes.

He said: “The government haven’t met with us for over 100 days and it’s really difficult. As doctors, we want to work.”

Sam Taylor-Smith lives in the Temple Meads area

Sam Taylor-Smith – a junior doctor in his fifth year at Southmead Hospital – said many of his colleagues have left England for “greener pastures”.

Taylor-Smith said: “I’ve seen first hand the devastation that has come about from understaffing.”

“We are going to see an NHS that is unrecognisable and certainly not the public service we as doctors want to offer.”

He added: “We’re losing good, hard-working doctors to other countries and they aren’t planning on coming back.

“Doctors are burnt out and they’re either leaving the profession or leaving the country.”

Dozens of junior doctors, consultants and a dog formed a picket line outside the BRI

Nima Maleri, an emergency medicine trainee from St Paul’s, spoke of his experience of working in Southmead Hospital’s A&E department during the winter of 2022.

Maleri said: “We were at 100 per cent capacity and it created an environment that was unsafe and undignified.

“We weren’t giving the quality of care that we wanted to give.

“While all the staff were doing what they could, there was nothing we could do because we don’t have that robust medical workforce.”

Just under two weeks ago doctors and consultations went on strike together for the first time.

Health secretary Steve Barclay said he was “deeply disappointed and concerned” and urged BMA to end its strike.

NHS England medical director professor Sir Stephen Powis said: “NHS services have had very little time to recover from the previous action and now face three consecutive days which will prove extremely challenging, with almost all routine care brought to a standstill.”

All photos: Isobel Edwards

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