LONDON (The Daily Mail) – NHS strikes have led to almost 1.2 million appointment cancellations, official figures showed.
In the latest blow to patients, 118,026 hospital appointments in England were rescheduled due to a three-day walkout by British Medical Association (BMA) consultants and junior doctors earlier this week. Radiographers also joined the picket lines on Tuesday.
A further 4,415 appointments in mental health, learning disability and community settings were estimated to have been also cancelled, NHS England data revealed.
It means 1,141,089 appointments have been postponed since NHS industrial action — which has involved staff including doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and paramedics — kicked-off in December.
NHS board papers released also confirmed the action is estimated to have cost the health service £1.1billion since December.
But not all NHS trusts have supplied figures on cancelled appointments, meaning the true scale of the disruption is expected to be higher.
NHS leaders have also said the real impact of strikes is masked by the data, as many hospitals have stopped booking in surgeries and other appointments on announced strike days.
As part of the unprecedented walk-out this week, both consultants and junior doctors offered “Christmas Day” levels of staffing, meaning only emergency care is unaffected.
Waiting lists for elective treatment on the NHS currently stand at a record 7.68million — or one in seven people.
This includes almost 390,000 patients who have waited at least one year for treatment.
It is the highest figure since records began in 2007.
For comparison, around 4.4million were stuck in the system when the pandemic reached the UK.
The latest joint strike between both groups of medics follows their first combined industrial action in September, which led to almost 130,000 NHS inpatient and outpatient appointments being rescheduled.
Responding to the data, Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation said, “As the total number operations and appointments cancelled due to industrial action reaches 1.2 million, which in actuality may be more than twice as high due to trusts not booking activity in the first place, health leaders could be forgiven for wondering at what point will that number become unacceptable enough for the BMA and government to bring an end to this.”