Junior Doctors and Consultants Strike at same time – September and October

Junior doctors and consultants in England will jointly undertake four days of strike action in September and October. For the first time in the history of the NHS, there will be four days in which junior doctors and consultants coordinate industrial action. This is in addition to other days on which just juniors or just consultants will be on strike. 

Junior doctors will strike on 20, 21, 22 September, and 2, 3, 4 October. Consultants will strike on  19 and 20 September and 2, 3 and 4 October.

Industrial action by junior doctors from 11 – 15 August saw 61,200 rescheduled acute inpatient and outpatient appointments and procedures in England.

The number of staff absent from work due to strikes peaked on 11 August with 23,682. The cumulative total of acute rescheduled inpatient and outpatient appointments and procedures over eight months of industrial action across the NHS now stands at 839,327.

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.

We will update about the upcoming strike days in the coming weeks.