Junior doctor: Why I don't want to strike but the future of the NHS depends on it

Junior doctors have voted to go on strike over the changes being made to their contracts.

Here, one junior A&E doctor Dr Amar Mashru, tells ITV News why he doesn't want to strike but he will because he thinks "the future of the NHS depends on it".

There are 53,000 junior doctors working in the NHS. They have just voted to go on strike for the first time in 40 years, and for only the second time in the history of the NHS. There is nothing good about this news.

I do not want to strike. It goes against every one of my instincts as a doctor. If I am not there with my colleagues in A&E to treat and help the patients who need us, then who will be?

Well, as it turns out, our consultants will be, the nurses will be and the other healthcare professionals will be - they will all step in and step up to hold the fort in our absence.

They have assured me of that. They will come to the department, on their time off if needs be, roll up their sleeves, and do our work whilst we are on the picket lines. They will give up and sacrifice whatever it takes to ensure the emergency services all still run safely so that we can be out there making our voices heard. Because this is much bigger than any of us. This is about the future of the NHS itself.

I do not want to strike. The fact that junior doctors have felt backed into a corner is a truly sad indictment of this Government’s management of the Health Service. It is a terrifying reflection of the Health Secretary’s refusal to listen to countless requests from the country’s leading medical authorities not to impose this contract on junior doctors - a contract that is harmful and dangerous to patients.

This new contract will see the removal of financial penalties for hospitals who work staff unsafe numbers of hours. There will be pay cuts, and those who work the most nights and weekends will be hit hardest. The contract penalises doctors who undertake research into new treatments and tests, and those who take time out to teach the next generation or to acquire new skills and qualifications.

Junior doctors are not going on strike because they have been denied a pay rise. If they were they would have had plenty of reasons to take industrial action in the last ten years alone.

They are striking because the new contracts are unsafe and unsustainable.

Up and down the country, for months on end, hundreds of thousands of doctors and members of the public have expressed their deepest and impassioned concerns about this contract. Their concerns have fallen on deaf ears, peppered with callous spin and rhetoric.

Even at this stage the Secretary of State for Health has written a letter to the doctors’ union, The BMA, insisting there are no preconditions to negotiations. A statement which is immediately followed up, in the very same letter, by a list of outcomes which must, however, be agreed upon in order for the BMA to be allowed back to the negotiating table - aka preconditions. It is a sham.

And worse still, the government continues to remind us that if they are not happy with any newly negotiated contract they will impose their preferred version anyway.

It truly is a sad time when the Health Secretary is willing to blindly chase policies born from misinformed ideologies at the cost of patient care. The government continues to insist they must deliver on their manifesto pledge to provide a seven day NHS, and that this contract is the solution to that promise.

The NHS is already a seven day service. Junior doctors and consultants already provide emergency care 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If the government truly want all the other weekday services to be available to the public on weekends too, fine, let’s talk about that.

Let’s discuss its merits, its costs and its implementation. Let’s plan for it. And let’s fund it. But simply stretching the five day staffing levels over seven in an attempt to deliver their own ill-conceived promises is a despicable act on the part of this government. Forcing staff to work more hours for less pay at the expense of patient safety, peddling spin and deception to force their political agenda, is deplorable and the Department of Health should be ashamed.

The NHS is an incredible, world class service that, despite chronic underfunding, delivers the most efficient healthcare system in the world because it is run by staff who believe wholeheartedly in its principles; who are willing to give everything to help others.

But our good will is being abused. We know things can be better and we want to work tirelessly with the public and with our government to achieve the excellence patients deserve. But instead we are being bullied and we are being lied to, and the cost will be to patients and their health.

I do not want to strike. But I will. Because the future of the NHS depends on it.

Dr Amar Mashru also created a video on the issue:

These are the views of Dr Amar Mashru and do not necessarily reflect those of ITV News.