The idea of a seven days healthcare delivery system in the place of a five days system is only to extend urgent and emergency care services to seven days per week; not to extend the total healthcare delivery system to seven days per week. It was this policy that was behind the new contract for junior doctors initially proposed in 2012.
NHS England employs some 1.4 million staff. Only if they all work together in harmony, the system would work. Junior doctors in England who make up 53,000 out of the 150,000 doctors in NHS England are only a tiny part of the entire machinery. They can remain “junior doctors” between 5-15 years after they qualify. Only 58% of them voted to go on the proposed 5-day strikes in October, November and December.
The other 97,000 doctors include 40,000 GPs, 42,000 consultants and 15,000 doctors doing research or further studies. Then there are 410,000 nurses; 25,000 midwives; 20,000 ambulance staff; 150,000 other medically professionally qualified staff; 42,000 managers and about 603,000 admin staff (cleaners, porters, security, record keeping, etc.). 31,000 junior doctors should not have a monopoly of ideas as to what is safe and what is not safe when other 1,369,000 employees are also involved and the latter are not complaining.
Nagin Khajuria
By email
