Hospital consultants are holding their second round of industrial action, from 7am, Thursday 24 August 2023 until 7am Saturday 26 August.
The action takes the form of ‘Christmas Day cover’ – which means senior doctors will still provide care in certain life threatening situations. It follows an earlier two-day walkout in July during which more than 67,000 outpatient appointments or planned operations were affected, many of which because consultants were not on hand to supervise junior doctors.
One of the changes for this round of action is that NHS employers will be banned from using agency staff to cover striking doctors, following a High Court ruling that took effect on 10 August. There will be also be the added impact of the Bank Holiday weekend.
Hospitals and integrated care boards should have the public aware in each area how services will be affected but local Healthwatch can also signpost the public to this information on the NHS England website page.
We should also know in the next couple of weeks whether junior doctors have voted in support of a further strike mandate and whether the ongoing pay dispute will disrupt patient care into the winter months.
