Industrial action in December
The British Medical Association (BMA) has announced that its members will take part in industrial action on the following dates in December:
- Junior doctors will strike between 20-23 December.
This is part of an ongoing dispute between junior doctors and government.
Junior doctors make up around half of all doctors in the NHS. Junior doctors are qualified doctors who have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in general practice.
The strike action will significantly impact services run by the Trust.
Planned appointments and operations
If you have an outpatient appointment or operation during this period, we will contact you directly by phone or text message if we need to make any changes. We may need to postpone your appointment at short notice and we apologise for this.
If you do not hear from us, please attend your appointment as normal.
Urgent and emergency care
We will continue to provide urgent and emergency care to those who need it. We encourage patients who need urgent or emergency care to come forward as normal.
However, where appropriate, please use other non-hospital services, for advice and treatment during this time, such as:
- NHS 111: online www.111.nhs.uk or call 111
- your local GP practice
- walk-in centres
- or a local pharmacy. Find yours on the NHS website.
In a medical emergency, when someone is seriously ill or injured, or their life is at risk, please dial 999 immediately.
Maternity care
Our maternity services will be running as usual. Please contact our triage team on 0208 887 3682 immediately if you:
- have any concerns about yourself or your baby
- have reduced baby movements
- have any vaginal bleeding
- think your waters might have broken
- think you are in labour
- feel unwell