Junior Doctors in Bristol Explain Why Strike Action Is Continuing

Local TV

Doctors say walking out was a last resort after talks over pay and staffing stalled. The Government says further disruption will delay treatment and slow NHS recovery.

Transcript

00:00Junior doctors in Bristol have already taken several rounds of strike action this autumn

00:07and more walkouts are planned in the coming weeks. Staff say these steps were a last resort.

00:14Unfortunately we had to take industrial action strike action or rather not strike at all but

00:18we reached an impasse with this government after three months of negotiations in regards to pay

00:24and jobs. I've spoken to a patient last week who wanted to manage his pain but tried to call his

00:31GP practice couldn't get an appointment ended up going to the emergency department waiting 12 plus

00:36hours just for us to manage you know simple painkillers and there's a theme here that patients

00:42can't get through to their GP practice patients are waiting long hours in the emergency department

00:47I'm sure many people can relate to this and it's because of an artificial bottleneck we don't have

00:53enough jobs we have 30,000 doctors applying for 10,000 training posts that's an extra 23,000

01:01doctors not getting into training. West Streeting offered us 2,000 extra training jobs over three

01:07years that doesn't that's not enough at all we wanted to go further and that's why we're taking

01:13strike action today. Doctors stress that months of negotiations have failed to deliver meaningful

01:20progress. The British Medical Association says pay has fallen significantly in real terms over the

01:27last decade and warns that without improvements retention and recruitment will continue to struggle.

01:33In response to the action Health Secretary West Streeting argues that further pay rises would cost

01:41billions and could divert funding from essential services. He also stresses that some waiting lists have

01:48already improved compared with last year and that the current offer is intended to balance fair pay with

01:56protecting frontline care. That doesn't reflect my experience unfortunately for example that patient

02:03with the lower back pain who ended up waiting 12 plus hours couldn't get a GP appointment.

02:08It doesn't reflect the times I've had to apologize so many times to my patient I'm sorry you've waited 12

02:13hours I'm sorry you waited 13 hours I'm sorry you couldn't get a GP appointment. I'm sure if you ask

02:18your audience and many other patients uh if that's the case that you get an outstanding no and even on

02:25non-strike days we have patients cancel the clinic appointments because there's not enough doctors

02:30there's not enough jobs there's training bottlenecks and all West Streeting has to do is increase the funding

02:35to increase uh training jobs for doctors. Ministers say patient safety is the priority

02:42and ongoing strikes risk reversing progress. While currently there is still no agreement and also

02:50no clear timetable for talks to resume. Both sides say they want a resolution but for now the dispute continues

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