Sir Jim Mackey said hospitals were struggling to fill rotas because six-day walkout was scheduled over holiday
The latest strike by resident doctors in England has been “deliberately timed to cause havoc” by coinciding with hospital staff’s Easter holidays, the head of the NHS has claimed.
Hospitals have struggled to find enough doctors to replace those who have refused to work during the six-day walkout, Sir Jim Mackey, the chief executive of NHS England, said.
Many thousands of resident doctors belonging to the British Medical Association were on strike on Wednesday, the second day of a six-day walkout – that is the longest yet in their long-running dispute with the government over pay and jobs. It is the union’s 15th strike since March 2023.
In a letter to NHS bosses on Monday night, Mackey said that the doctors’ stoppage risked setting back the health service’s recent progress at improving waiting times for care and the public’s satisfaction with it.
