The British Medical Association (BMA) has announced strike action by resident doctors from 7am on Friday 25 July until 7am on Wednesday 30 July.
During these strikes, all other NHS staff - including consultants and other specialist doctors - will still be working, and the focus of the NHS will be on ensuring as many services as possible continue to operate safely.
Regardless of any strike action taking place, it is really important that patients who need urgent medical care continue to come forward as normal, especially in emergency and serious life-threatening cases - when someone is seriously ill or injured, or their life is at risk.
However, less urgent cases may experience longer waits during strikes – and we are asking patients to choose services appropriately during industrial action and take simple steps to help ensure care is available to patients who need it most.
This includes using 111 online as the first port of call for health needs and, as ever, only using 999 if it is a serious or life-threatening emergency.
The NHS 111 online service can be found here; https://111.nhs.uk/
For more information on when to call 999 and when to go to A&E, please click here.
While we will do our best to only cancel appointments where it is necessary, we know from previous strikes that there will be significant disruption to patient appointments as a result of the strikes.
If we have not contacted you, please attend your appointment as planned. The NHS will contact you if your appointment needs to be rescheduled due to strike action.
GP practices and pharmacies will continue to be open as normal during the resident doctors’ strike. Please continue to attend your GP and dental appointments, unless you are contacted and told otherwise.