Planning under way at King's Mill hospital trust for third junior doctors’ strike

British Medical Association members will walk out for 72 hours on Wednesday, June 14, from 7am, in a continued row over pay and working conditions.

The action will be the third time medics have walked out this year after separate strikes in March and April.

It comes as the union calls on ministers to give junior doctors a 35 per cent pay settlement to make up for what it estimates as a 26.2 per cent fall in the real-terms value of their salaries since 2008.

It has warned it will continue to stage walk-outs of at least three days over the summer, unless it receives a “credible” offer.

However, the Government has remained firm and said it has offered a “reasonable opening offer” to halt the upcoming walkout.

Now bosses at Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs King’s Mill and Mansfield Community Hospital, have started planning for the industrial action.

About 85 per cent of juniors walked out last time around.

Rachel Eddie, trust chief operating officer, told the latest trust board meeting: “We’ve started our strike planning meetings.

“Previous strikes have gone well and we’ve managed to cover pretty much every shift we’ve needed to.

“It’s difficult to say until we get to that point [of the strike] whether we will get the same response this time.

“With each progressive strike we potentially might see, there might be less take-up.

“However, it’s not the holiday period this time, whereas the last time it was in the Easter holidays and that could work in our favour.

“No major concerns are flagged at this point, though it is early days.”

Other members of the board raised concerns about industrial action and the impact it could have on finances and long-term projects.

David Selwyn, trust medical director and deputy chief executive, said: “It’s disappointing we’re having a third period of industrial action and we all recognise that.

“There clearly is a strength of feeling among the medical workforce, but this is a massive undertaking for us as an organisation. You’re talking about an impact that lasts a month and this is the third month, in effect, we will lose other activities on a host of things we would like to do.

“Notwithstanding the impact on our patients, the huge financial cost this has as an organisation, but also the forward-facing impact.”

On the upcoming strikes, the BMA said it has negotiated with ministers for three weeks, but received “no recognition” about its “scale of pay erosion”.

It said: “We made proposals showing our willingness to be creative and work with the Government on how the reversal of our pay erosion could be achieved.

“In the end, however, the Government would simply not accept the fundamental reality of the pay cuts junior doctors have faced.”

A Government spokesman said it was “surprising and deeply disappointing” the BMA had called a further strike while “constructive” talks were ongoing.

He said: “We made a fair and reasonable opening offer and were in active discussions about both pay and non-pay issues.

“Unfortunately, it seems the BMA is unwilling to move meaningfully away from their unaffordable headline demands on pay.”