The NHS could collapse and patients die if doctor strikes go ahead next week as the super-flu surges, Wes Streeting has warned.
The Health Secretary said he was ‘genuinely fearful’ for the NHS if junior doctors walk out, claiming that tackling the mutant flu strain is ‘probably the worst pressure the NHS has faced since Covid’.
He warned of ‘fatal harm’ to patients and criticised the British Medical Association (BMA) for choosing to strike in December when ‘they know that this week will be most painful for the NHS’.
On Thursday, figures showed record flu cases for the time of year after they leapt by 55 per cent in seven days to an average of 2,660 patients in hospital daily last week.
Mr Streeting said this total could triple by the time the outbreak hits its peak in the coming weeks.
Members of the doctors’ union are voting on a deal from the Government that could halt the walkout. It wants a 26 per cent pay rise, on top of the extra 28.9 per cent it received over the past two years – the highest in the public sector.
But if medics vote it down, strikes will take place on five consecutive days from next Wednesday.
Speaking to LBC radio on Friday, Mr Streeting said: ‘The thing I’m genuinely fearful of is that, even if I throw more money at this situation now – at this time, to get through the next week on strikes, there’s only a finite number of doctors and staff.
British Medical Association (BMA) bosses claimed they had ‘no choice but to announce more strike dates’ after the Government failed to put forward a ‘credible plan’. Pictured: Resident doctors on the picket line outside St Thomas’ Hospital in London last month
Train travellers wear masks at London Waterloo Station on Wednesday after NHS leaders urged people coughing and sneezing to wear masks on public transport
‘There’s only a finite number of care-home beds and community-based care.
‘So if you’ve got strikes and you’ve got flu and you’ve got all of these trolleys on corridors, and you’ve got demand going up rather than down – I just don’t think there is a lever I can pull, I don’t think there’s an amount of money that means I can… guarantee patient safety over the next week.
‘That’s a pretty terrifying position, not just for me to be in, but for the doctors and NHS staff who are confronting that challenge.’
Asked if the collapse of the NHS was at ‘one minute to midnight’, he replied: ‘Effectively, yeah.’
Citing the ‘particularly aggressive strain’ of flu, he added: ‘If we didn’t have strikes looming over us, I would be extremely worried about that situation.
‘The idea that we will have to contend with that plus strikes is dangerous, actually, and I am extremely worried about the pressure on staff, but more seriously, the risk to patients if we end up with that double whammy of both flu and strikes.’
Writing in The Times, Mr Streeting described Christmas strikes as the ‘Jenga piece that collapses the tower’ of the NHS.
He told LBC he offered to extend the BMA’s strike mandate to February so the union could rearrange strikes for the new year.
People have begun to mask up to protect themselves from contracting the new ‘superflu’ beseiging the UK
He said: ‘I cannot understand why… they didn’t take up that offer. Because if they wanted to just give me a kicking, there’s an opportunity to do that in January.
‘I assume the reason… is because they know this week will be most painful for the NHS. I don’t understand why the BMA have not been willing to compromise.’
A YouGov poll on Friday showed that most people (58 per cent) opposed the doctors’ strike, while 33 per cent disagreed.
This week, a school in Cornwall was the latest in the country to close over ‘unprecedented and increasing incidences’ of flu.
