10 minutes agoShareSaveNick TriggleHealth correspondentShareSavePA MediaHealth Secretary Wes Streeting says the NHS is facing a challenging few days during the doctor strike as it strives to keep as many services as possible running.Speaking after the five-day walkout began on Friday, he said it was not possible to eliminate disruption, but it was being kept to a minimum.In previous strikes, the focus has been on staffing emergency care but this time the NHS is striving to keep non-urgent services running as much as possible, with senior doctors covering for resident doctors who are striking for the 12th time over payThe British Medical Association says this risks stretching staff too thinly and ministers had ample opportunity to stop the strike. Writing in the Times ahead of the strike, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer urged resident doctors, previously known as junior doctors, not to follow their union down the “damaging road” of strike action.Despite the efforts being put in by NHS leaders, he said the walkout would cause a “huge loss for the NHS and the country”, as he criticised the British Medical Association (BMA) for “rushing” into strikes”.Sir Keir said the walkouts threatened “to turn back the clock on progress we have made in rebuilding the NHS over the last year”.Speaking during a visit to NHS England’s headquarters in London – where the NHS is monitoring the impact of the strike across England – Streeting said the government “will not let the BMA hold the country to ransom.””We are doing everything we can to minimise the risk to patients, minimise disruption. “I want to be honest with people what we can’t do is eliminate disruption or risk to patients. “We know there have been operation, appointments and procedures already cancelled and we know there’ll be real challenges over the next five days and that is why the prime minister and I are so angry on behalf of patients and other NHS staff who are working hard to keep the show on the road.”Previous walkouts have led to mass cancellations of operations, appointments and treatments, with more than one million cancelled during resident doctor strikes which began in March 2023.Some hospitals were only able to deliver half their normal amount of routine care on strike days.No official figures have been released yet for the latest strike, but some hospitals are reporting more than 80% of their non-urgent work is being done.Doctors in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are not part of the pay dispute. In England, members of the public have been urged to come forward for NHS care during the walkout, and are being asked to attend appointments unless told they are cancelled.GP surgeries will open as usual, and urgent care and A&E will continue to be available, alongside NHS 111, NHS England said.The strike is going ahead after talks between the government and BMA broke down on Tuesday.Those talks were focused on non-pay issues, such as the cost of exam fees, working conditions and career progression, after Streeting had said pay was not open to negotiation.There are currently no plans for more talks but this could change once the current five days of strike action are over. Government sources say the ball is very much in the BMA’s court and they still will not negotiate on pay. The BMA says, despite a 5.4% average pay rise this year following a 22% increase over the previous two years, pay is still down by a fifth since 2008, once i …
