Operations cancelled despite junior doctor strike delay

There has been little time to reschedule thousands of cancelled procedures Credit: PA

Hundreds of patients across the west have had operations and appointments cancelled despite a strike by junior doctors being called off.

While a temporary agreement reached with the government means the planned three-day strike - which would have started at 8am today (Dec 1) - has been called off, many procedures have been cancelled.

Weston Area Health NHS Trust has cancelled around 120 out of 320 planned outpatient appointments alongside 12 non-urgent operations. The trust stopped booking operations when the BMA ballot came back as a Yes vote.
At Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, around a dozen operations have been postponed together with a "number of outpatient clinics".

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt told MPs on Monday that NHS England had estimated that up to 20,000 patients may have operations cancelled across all three days of planned action.

These included around 1,500 cataract operations, 900 skin lesion removals, 630 hip and knee operations, 400 spine operations, 250 gall bladder removals and nearly 300 tonsil and grommets operations.