Resident doctors – formerly known as junior doctors – will stage industrial action in the week before Christmas.
Staff are set to walk out for five days, from 7am on Wednesday 17 December until 7am on Monday 22 December, amid a long-running dispute over pay.
Hundreds of doctors, including many at Scunthorpe General Hospital and Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital in Grimsby, are expected to take part. The strike comes as hospital leaders say services are already “incredibly busy” due to the impact of previous walkouts and rising flu and covid cases.
A spokesperson for Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust previously said staff are well practised in managing strike days and will contact patients directly if their appointment is affected.
Dr Jack Fletcher, chair of the British Medical Association’s resident doctors committee said the action is the result of the governments failure to “put forward a credible plan to fix the jobs crisis for resident doctors at the same time as pushing a real terms pay cut for them”.
He continued: “These do not need to go ahead. Gradually raising pay over a few years and some common-sense fixes to the job security of our doctors are well within the reach of this Government. It would ensure both the long-term strength of our healthcare workforce and spare the country the indignity of seeing unemployed doctors at a time patients are queuing up to even see a GP.”
This will be the fourteenth round of industrial action in the ongoing dispute.
Part of the Gi Grimsby News team since 2020.