Junior doctors’ strikes will leave elderly patients stuck in hospital, Age UK warns

Thousands more elderly people will be stuck in hospital over Christmas because of junior doctors’ strikes, Age UK has warned.

The charity is among several who have said the timing of the strikes, which begin at 7am on Wednesday means it will be “extremely difficult to ensure safe and effective care” during them.

Age UK is one of five organisations raising fears over patient safety and making a plea to the British Medical Association (BMA) and Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, for a resolution to the dispute.

Junior doctors’ walkouts are due to last until Saturday, with their longest strike to come early in the new year, while flu, norovirus and Covid hospitalisations are rising.

In a joint letter with the NHS Confederation, Patients Association, National Voices and Healthwatch , Age UK said strike action in the days ahead could leave thousands of patients stranded in hospital for want of staff to get them discharged.

The latest figures show 13,000 such cases in hospitals despite being medically fit for discharge. The charities said the withdrawal of almost half the medical workforce in England would mean the most vulnerable are left “bearing the brunt” of the pay dispute.

The joint letter urged the BMA and the Health Secretary to agree national derogations to protect “life and limb” services.

It said: “There were 13,000 patients – many older people – waiting to be discharged in the first week of December. Strike action in the run-up to Christmas could see these numbers increase, leaving patients stranded in hospital over the holiday period despite being medically fit for discharge.

“Our concern is that, despite the best efforts of hard-working NHS staff, it will be extremely difficult to ensure safe and effective care during this period for all patients that need it.”

The letter said the Government and BMA must work to find a solution to the strikes, describing the current position as “clearly unsustainable”, and warned that no national exemptions for the walkout had been agreed.

“The timing, duration and fact that – as yet – no national derogations have been agreed is cause for alarm,” they wrote. “As a minimum, we are calling on all parties to take a step back and agree national derogations in our most vital ‘life and limb’ services so they can continue to operate in full over the period.”

Caroline Abrahams, the charity director at Age UK, said: “We have been hearing from distressed older people about how their outpatient appointments and operations scheduled for strike days have had to be postponed, sometimes for months, and for some unlucky people on more than one occasion.

“Make no mistake, these postponements have had real consequences for them by slowing down the diagnosis of serious illnesses, as well as delaying surgery to deal with cataracts and degraded hip and knee joints that seriously interfere with daily life and often cause them ongoing pain.

“With the best will in the world, it is hard to guarantee patient safety and well-being if you are operating a hospital with a skeleton clinical staff, one that will already be being depleted by staff sickness and annual leave.”

Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “Any strike is highly disruptive, but worse still there is no agreement on national derogations. Without this agreement for doctors to provide urgent and critical ‘life and limb’ cover, the risk to patient safety, and strain on other staff, is further heightened.”

On Tuesday, Rishi Sunak described the strikes as “very disappointing” and questioned why junior doctors were holding out for more money, saying their terms were more generous than anyone else’s.

The Prime Minister told the Commons liaison committee: “We have now reached a resolution with every other part of the public sector and every other part of the NHS, so over a million workers through the Agenda for Change deal that we did several months ago, including all our nurses, and then most recently with consultants and the other doctor grades.

“So the only remaining people who have not settled are the junior doctors. The question more is for the junior doctors, as to why they are refusing to accept something that everyone else is now accepting, on top of having a pay increase which is more generous than anyone else’s set by the independent body going into this.”

The BMA announced the strike earlier this month after talks between junior doctors and the Government broke down.

The union said junior doctors have been offered an average three per cent rise on top of the average 8.8 per cent increase they were given in the summer. But it said the cash would be split unevenly across different doctor grades and would “still amount to pay cuts for many doctors”.

Consultant doctors from the BMA in England have reached a deal with the Government, which will see consultants earn more money from January, although it will not be paid until April.

BMA members are voting on the deal, which would see them get a pay rise of between six per cent and 19.6 per cent.  Specialist, associate specialist and specialty doctors in England have also come to an agreement, which is being put to members.

Prof Phil Banfield, the chairman of the BMA council, said: “We are as disappointed as our patients are at being in this position again. During all strike action by junior doctors, ‘life and limb’ care has been preserved and indeed enhanced in many places by being provided by the most senior and experienced doctors in the NHS – consultants and specialists.

“This has been the case throughout the junior doctor action, which precludes the need for national derogations. As we have with previous rounds of industrial action, we will carefully consider any requests we receive for a derogation and give each one due regard, based on its merits, but at this stage we have not received any requests for derogations from NHS England.”

He said trusts had been given “plenty of time” to discharge patients before the strikes started.

The NHS has said emergency and urgent care will be prioritised during the strikes and “almost all” routine care will be affected.

Ms Atkins said: “I want to assure patients that we have taken significant contingency measures to reduce the disruption these strikes will cause.

“But we know that, despite these measures and the hard work of NHS staff, these strikes can cause significant disruption to patients and add extra pressure on the NHS.

“We have consistently acted reasonably, and that approach has led to offers being put to members of the consultant and specialist doctor unions.

“My door remains open should the BMA junior doctors’ committee cancel these disruptive strikes and come back to the negotiating table as we were making good progress.”

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