Hospitals working hard to reschedule hundreds of appointments affected by industrial action

The industrial action was called by the British Medical Association and involved junior doctors nationally – including at the trust’s Mansfield Community, Newark and Sutton’s King's Mill hospitals.

SFH is now working hard to rearrange the hundreds of appointments affected by the strike, which was held between 7am on Wednesday, June 14, and 7am on Saturday, June 17.

Dr David Selwyn, SFH medical director, said: “Junior doctors play a vital role in helping to deliver all aspects of healthcare across Nottinghamshire – and that is certainly true here at our hospitals.

“Our junior doctors make up nearly half of our medical workforce, so it was inevitable that there was going to be some disruption as our hardworking colleagues worked to ensure that patients could continue to access the vital urgent and emergency care they needed.

“We are grateful to all our NHS colleagues for the work they did to put us in the best possible place to prepare for that disruption.

“We know there is a patient behind each and every one of those numbers, which is why we are working hard to re-book those appointments so that all those affected can access the treatment they deserve as soon as possible.

“I’m sure I speak for us all in hoping that a resolution can be found to this national dispute as quickly as possible.”

The message comes following the release of new data from NHS England this week which reveals the extent of the impact of last week’s industrial action across the trust’s three hospitals.

According to the data, a total of 451 outpatient appointments that were originally due to take place during the period of the strike needed to be rescheduled across the trust’s hospitals as a result of the industrial action.

A further 56 ‘elective’ inpatient procedures and ‘day cases’ also needed to be rescheduled, after they were originally due to take place during the same 72-hour period of the industrial action.