Junior Doctors and Consultants strike (August 2023)

Thank you for all your efforts to support the system during the NHS strike days this year. The British Medical Association (BMA) has announced that junior doctors will take part in strike action for five days from 7am on Friday 11 August until 06.59am on Tuesday 15 August and hospital consultants will be striking on 24 and 25 August 2023.

This will again affect all London trusts and trainee doctors working in general practice and for community health care providers. The strike does not affect salaried GPs. 

As a system we have put in additional capacity to support front door, emergency care, GP hubs, and community services working with our partners.

We are aware of the sustained additional daily demands that are made upon general practice and that this is likely to be exacerbated by the further industrial action.

We would like to take the opportunity to reiterate the following points to use as a guide to help with your local planning. 

• As you do throughout the year, report by exception to your local primary care team any practice issues which may impact your ability to run as normal e.g. workforce issues such as sickness.
• Continue to make your 111 slots available ensuring there is late morning and afternoon utilisation.
• Prioritise calls coming from paramedics when they are on site with patients (or the cover in place for that day).
• Checking on care homes and home care providers and proactively managing high risk patients on the days leading up to and after the strike action time.
• Supporting same day access by making available any un-utilised appointments within your Enhanced Access sites (which are ordinarily used for routine care).
• Please be aware / inform your teams of possible additional request for home visits from patients.
• Please encourage your teams to use appropriate pathways when emergency care is needed to improve our patients experience if possible.
• Aim to switch as many appointments as possible to “Book on the day” (this needs to be done in advance)

Your actions so far have had an impact in mitigating the risks from strike days. We also appreciate the significant impact these added pressures have had on you and your teams so please let us know if there is anything else we can do to support you.