The patients

Kate Stewart, 29: ‘Maternity care is great, but stretched. Hunt is being irresponsible’

I am heavily pregnant with my first baby, although I am not due quite yet. I have had a couple of health worries recently so it has been playing on my mind that, while unlikely, if I were to need emergency or maternity care this week during the strike, my family could be affected. Although the level of care has been great in the hospital, our perception was that staff were already stretched very thinly and so I feel that they will really struggle with the strike.

Despite this, I absolutely support junior doctors fighting for their right to work safe hours, in safe conditions, for appropriate pay, and in a way that doesn’t knowingly disadvantage women and single parents. The new contract will only worsen their situation and put patients at risk. Junior doctors are being used as scapegoats for failings or inefficiencies within the NHS. The spin in Jeremy Hunt’s campaign is utterly unfair and irresponsible, and he simply cannot provide seven-day care in the NHS without the necessary investment.

This magical contract won’t solve the problem, but the general feeling is that Hunt knows this, and it is part of a wider plan to dismantle the NHS. I am reassured that quality emergency care will still be provided by senior doctors, nurses, midwives and the rest of the emergency care teams. Dressing up the walkout as a complete withdrawal of emergency care is irresponsible and unjustified scaremongering, and yet another attempt to damage the junior doctors’ image.

Gerhard Lohmann-Bond, 62: ‘I am happy to put my life on hold to support them’

Four days ago I got a letter from my consultant saying that they had found a lesion on my kidney and I have had blood tests done as a matter of urgency. This is potentially a very threatening condition and in normal circumstances I would get a scan done post-haste. However, I don’t expect anything to happen while the junior doctors are out on strike. If the strike is extended then I don’t know what will happen.

I saw that junior doctor resign on ITV this morning, and if he is willing to put his career at risk then I am willing to support him. If I can do that by putting my own life on hold for a short while then I am only too happy to do that. If we want to have a full service whereby routine work is done on the weekends at hospitals then we need to have the staff to do the work. It’s not just junior doctors but all ancillary services, including management – everything that makes a hospital tick. If the government insists on making this work then they need to pump in considerable funds, which they are not prepared to do. In the absence of those funds the burden will be placed on the backs of people who are already working their guts out. I’ve heard people comment that doctors are earning really good money but they should be paid well for the gruelling work that they do.

Anonymous, 52: ‘Withdrawing medical aid breaks the Hippocratic oath’

My wife is due an endoscopy for possible bowel cancer on Wednesday. She’s scared enough as it is without worrying whether her appointment may either be delayed or cancelled at the last minute. Right now, she needs the help and support of those in the medical profession and they are more interested in what they can earn at weekends than caring for the very people they have sworn to protect.

Withdrawing medical aid to those in need breaks the Hippocratic oath that all doctors vow to at the start of their career. Whether a dispute is right or wrong plays second place to this oath. Those participating in industrial action who have stated that they withdraw their services from saving life are now playing at God. That is unforgivable.

As soon as junior doctors chose to withdraw care and treatment they lost my sympathy.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘If you are labouring, your waters break, your baby isn’t moving, any of those things, come in and we’ll look after you.’ Photograph: David Jones/PA

The NHS staff

Dr Amar Mashru, emergency medicine registrar: ‘Patient care will be prioritised, safety will be paramount’

In our A&E department our patients will be seen by doctors with far more experience and more senior than me. GPs, advanced and emergency nurse practitioners, phlebotomists, technicians, nursing and managerial teams will all be stepping up and stepping in. As a united and empowered team they are going to prioritise patient care in a way rarely possible; clinician-led and well staffed.

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Safety will be paramount, and planning is in the hands of the most expert individuals who deliver care on the frontline day in day out, because they know how much this matters. Failure to stand up for patient safety and patient care through this campaign and this industrial action would be negligent. It risks condemning us to a lifetime of existing under the rule of politic ideologies, game playing and mismanagement.

The public and staff deserve an open and realistic discussion about how we deliver healthcare in the UK. Policy governing patient care cannot be led blind by those wishing to push through unilateral political agendas. This is a time to take a stand and it is being approached with expert consideration, due diligence and clear planning. I will strike with a clear conscience and I will strike to preserve the future of the NHS.

Dr Hannah Mitchell: ‘This sexist contract is bad for doctors, bad for patients, bad for the NHS’

The decision to strike is one that all doctors will have taken with heavy hearts. That we have arrived at this point shows a total failure on the part of the government. Each cancelled operation is a cause for regret, but even more have been called off due to bed shortages, all too common in our under-resourced NHS.

At the root of the disagreement is Jeremy Hunt’s proposed plan for a “seven-day NHS”. No one is totally clear on what is meant by this; emergency care is already provided 24/7 and to propose the provision of seven-day elective care simply by taking junior doctors away from already overstretched weekday rotas, with no extra staff and no extra funding, is simply fantasy. Who knows the most about the situation on the ground: the health secretary or 54,000 junior doctors working on the frontline, who see all too clearly the cracks in the system? Who has the interests of patients at heart – those who have trained for years to be able to care for them, or a government at total disconnect from the workforce?

Imposition is a disaster for morale. Hunt has refused to engage with junior doctors, brushing off advice and doggedly imposing a contract that has even been condemned by a director of the World Health Organisation for contravening the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The BMA has said it will call off the strike if the government returns to the negotiating table. This sexist contract is bad for patients, bad for doctors, bad for the NHS.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Junior doctors protesting in London last week. ‘The junior doctors didn’t ask for a pay rise and defending the pay and conditions they do have – including safe staffing levels – is completely reasonable.’ Photograph: Joe Pepler/REX/Shutterstock

Anonymous midwife: ‘Women are as safe as any other day”

Am I worried about the strike? For patient safety, not in the slightest. If there’s one thing I want women to know it’s that we will care for you and you are as safe as any other day. If you need us, come and see us – if you are labouring, your waters break, your baby isn’t moving, any of those things, come in and we’ll look after you.

What does worry me is how this has happened. It’s a farce. There is no weekend effect. The junior doctors didn’t ask for a pay rise and defending the pay and conditions they do have – including safe staffing levels – is completely reasonable.

My real worry is selfish. The doctors are a soft target. It’s easy to paint them as well-paid, greedy, selfish. But once our medical colleagues have had their pay and conditions imposed, we’ll be next to be “brought into line”. Doctors, nurses, midwives are expensive to train and valuable assets. This ridiculous situation risks losing lots of those assets.

The politicians

Andrea Jenkyns, Conservative MP on health select committee: ‘The BMA has chosen to put patients at risk’

In 2008 both the Department of Health and the BMA agreed that the existing contract was not fit for purpose. Negotiations have been ongoing for three years, with 90% of the contract agreed. Five hundred junior doctors have already signed up to the terms of the new contract to start in April. And the BMA has chosen to put patients at incalculable risk by continuing with this reckless and irresponsible strike.

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The health secretary has gone out of his way to ensure his door is open for negotiations to go on. The threat of imposition was not new and didn’t come out of the blue. The BMA knew this was an option and yet it has continued with its highly politicised crusade to, in the words of one junior doctor, be “the first crack in the edifice of austerity”.

I ask you: is this proportionate? Is withdrawing junior doctors from emergency paediatric units consistent with doctors demanding a far better settlement than any other member of the clinical team receive?

The government has given so much of what the BMA wanted, yet it continues on this dangerous and damaging political crusade that seriously risks damaging public confidence in medics, which would be the ultimate tragedy.

Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat MP and health spokesman: ‘Hunt’s proposal was doomed from the start’

If a single patient is unable to access vital healthcare when they need it, this government will have failed in its most important duty: to protect the safety of its citizens.

This weekend, along with representatives from the other parties, I wrote to Jeremy Hunt proposing a compromise in an attempt to break this stalemate. The proposal was rejected outright and my calls for a cross-party meeting to attempt to find a solution were ignored altogether.

If Hunt is serious about resolving this dispute, not only must he lift the threat of imposing the contract on junior doctors; but he also needs to look at why this proposal was doomed from the start. It is symptomatic of the wider problem that the government keeps trying to push NHS staff and services to deliver more, without giving them the funding they need to do it.

Once again, I urge the health secretary to come to the table and convene a cross-party commission to establish a long-term settlement for the NHS before patients start paying the price for this dispute and his relationship with staff is damaged beyond repair.