Junior Doctors Strike

Michelle Cady, Chief Operating Officer, at North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust speaks about the upcoming junior doctor strike

Transcript

00:00 Hello, my name is Michelle Cady and I'm the Chief Operating Officer at North West Anglia

00:06 NHS Foundation Trust. We operate Peterborough City Hospital, Hinchingbrook Hospital and

00:11 also Stamford and Rutland Hospital. During the industrial action, our main priority is

00:16 to make sure we can continue to run our hospitals and care for our patients as quickly and as

00:22 safely as possible. We are working hard to make sure that we keep any disruption to a

00:27 minimum and that we can maintain as much activity in the form of clinics and surgery and tests

00:35 as we can, but we are expecting the industrial action to be an extremely challenging time

00:39 for us. We will get in touch with patients who have an appointment booked during the

00:44 strike period if their appointment needs to be rescheduled. So if your appointment is

00:49 going ahead as planned, you will not hear from us, so please do attend as normal because

00:54 we will be ready to see you. I really appreciate how very disappointing this will be for anyone

01:01 who's waiting for treatment or investigations and if we do have to reschedule, we are very,

01:07 very sorry about that. We are working very hard to make sure that is kept to a minimum

01:12 and we will reschedule those appointments and tests and procedures as soon as we possibly

01:16 can. Just to say again, patients who we don't contact in advance about their appointments,

01:22 they should please attend their appointment as planned. We will be running those clinics

01:28 and services for you. Our emergency departments are there to treat the most urgent and life-threatening

01:34 conditions. It would be a huge help to us if patients only attended A&E or the emergency

01:40 department if they require emergency or very, very urgent care. What would be great is using

01:47 alternative NHS services wherever possible such as pharmacies, GP services for everything

01:53 other than life and limb-threatening situations and this would be a great help to our hospitals

01:58 if people could do this. If people do, however, need medical help for something that isn't

02:05 life-threatening or a serious injury, the other option is to call NHS 111 or they have

02:12 NHS 111 online which has a referral tool which is very helpful. That service directs people

02:18 to the most appropriate place for the care or treatment that they need.

02:22 [BLANK_AUDIO]