'Around 60 per cent' of NHS trust's resident doctors to strike this week, directors hear

Looming strike action by resident doctors could cause a ‘significant impact’ for the NHS trust running Wexham Park Hospital, a board meeting has heard.

Operations could be cancelled at short notice as nearly 60 per cent of the trust’s resident doctors, previously known as junior doctors, are expected to walk out for five days from Friday (November 14). 

The British Medical Association (BMA) union and the Government are locked in a dispute over pay, training, and available job roles - with time fast running out for a resolution.

A meeting of NHS Frimley Health Foundation Trust bosses on November 7, heard that strike action was a ‘threat’ at a time of rising healthcare demand in winter.

The trust runs Wexham Park Hospital in Slough and Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot.  

Chief operating officer Tina Benson told the meeting, held at Wexham Park, that staff rotas were ‘ready for the strikes’ but some planned [elective] operations may still be cancelled. 

“We know it [the doctor’s going on strike] is about 60 per cent – but, of course we don’t know which 60 per cent - and that has been the last few strikes, actually,” Ms Benson said.  

Resident doctors’ last strike action ended in September 2024, after a deal was struck with the new Labour Government.

Ms Benson continued: “We tend to wait till about three days before the strikes before cancelling patients because, last time particularly, we didn’t have to cancel as much as we thought we were going to.

“It looks again that we’ve got very well-staffed rotas already, ready for the strikes, which is good – obviously there’s always a cost to that.

“But it does look like - particularly for our elective [operating] theatre cases - that we will be able to run a good proportion of those elective services.”

Responding to a question about mitigating the impact of strikes, chief medical officer Dr Tim Ho said the trust was ‘in the middle’ of a national dispute between the BMA and Government.

Dr Ho said: “This is not a dispute between the trust and the resident doctors, this is a dispute between the resident doctors and the government.

“We are the people in the middle just trying to keep our services going.”

Conversations with doctors over averting strike action, he said, were ‘very sensitive’ and 'must not be politicised'.

He added: “We must do it [in a way that they don’t feel threatened, don’t feel cajoled and don’t feel obliged to do so, they’ve got to do it because it’s what they want to do.

“They have the absolute right to withhold their labour because that’s one of the foundations of our democracy.”

Earlier in the meeting, deputy chief executive Caroline Hutton had requested that industrial action be added as a specific ‘threat’ on the trust’s board access framework [BAF].  

The BAF is a risk register which tracks issues with the trust’s services.

Ms Hutton said: “We’re now in that period of industrial action. There could be significant impact - it could be ongoing.

“I would think that we do need to update the BAF with industrial action as a threat moving forwards.”

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting wrote an open letter to resident doctors last week. 

He said the 'enormous financial pressures facing the country' meant a higher pay offer could not be provided, and urged union members to accept the Government's offer; which included increasing training placements and funding mandatory exam fees.

In response to Mr Streeting’s letter, BMA resident doctors committee chair Dr Jack Fletcher said the offer ‘does not go far enough’ and would leave many doctors still ‘unable to find a job’.

He added: “Strikes can still be avoided but first there will need willingness to offer a pay deal and a genuine solution on jobs.”