The four-day strike organised by the British Medical Association (BMA) and hospital doctors’ union the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association (HCA) began at 6:59am yesterday morning (April 11) and will run until 6:59am on Saturday.
Read more: NHSE: Pharmacies should be 'first point of call' during junior doctor strikes
The BMA’s junior doctors’ committee (JDC) is asking the government to commit to restoring junior doctor pay in England to its 2008/09 levels – which as of the beginning of 2023 means an uplift of around 35%.
NHS Providers, a membership body representing NHS trusts, yesterday said that pharmacists were providing support amid the strike, which will “mean disruption on a scale the NHS hasn’t seen before from industrial action”.
“Pharmacist support”
Trust’s “number one priority” of keeping patients safe will be “even harder than in previous strikes so it’s all hands on deck”, director of policy and strategy at NHS Providers Miriam Deakin said.
She added that it is “not just consultants and specialist doctors stepping into the breach”.
Read more: Pharmacies ‘largely unaffected’ by severe pressures, claims NHS medical director
“We’re seeing support from GPs, paramedics, pharmacists, community matrons and others playing their part to minimise the risk”, she said.
It remains unclear whether community pharmacists are among those drafted in to provide support, where this is taking place and what duties pharmacists have taken on.
“Lower rates of pay”
Ms Deakin added that trust leaders “are worried about securing adequate cover for the night shifts ahead”, calling for “a leap of imagination from all parties involved in this dispute to end the strikes now”.
According to the NHS Confederation, while the last junior doctors’ strikes saw “thousands” of consultants provide cover, this time “many consultants either have annual leave booked due to the holidays or are more reluctant to put themselves forward”.
Read more: It’s time for community pharmacy to start saying no
It said on Friday (April 7) that other professionals such as pharmacists could be “reluctant to provide additional cover … because their rates of pay for this non-salaried work are lower than what the BMA recommends consultants ask for”.
During the previous junior doctors’ strikes that took place last month, NHS England said that patients should use pharmacies as one of their “first ports of call” during the walkouts.
