Consultant strike action from 24 - 26 August
What's happening?
Strike action by consultants is set to cause major disruption across the NHS before the bank holiday Monday. The two day strike will start and end at 6:59am from Thursday 24 August until Saturday 26 August, and is affecting all NHS hospitals in the country.
Members of the British Medical Association (BMA), British Dentist Association (BDA) are expected to hold industrial action across all of the country’s NHS hospitals over a consecutive two day period.
There will be a 48-hours walkout, running from Thursday 24 August until Saturday 26 August.
This means a significant amount of planned care involving junior doctors will also be affected, and many services will have to be cancelled altogether.
What are we doing?
We want to ensure that our patients are kept safe during this time, we will be reviewing any appointments which may be needed to be rescheduled throughout this time and will maintain treating our most critically-ill patients. Our senior doctors, nurses and support will be on the frontline helping to keep our patients safe and cared for, whilst respecting the rights of our staff to strike – but we know that next week is going to be busy!
We are working together with our teams and our trade union representatives from the BMA, and our main priority is to maintain a safe level of care for our patients in Croydon and across the NHS in South West London.
To help us care for patients needing urgent and emergency treatment, we are urging Croydon residents to only use A&E in serious emergencies. To avoid long waits, we are encouraging people to go to NHS 111 online ( 111.nhs.uk) unless it is a life-threatening emergency when you should still call 999.
We need your help to keep people in our community safe and informed. We would be grateful if you could share these messages on social media and with your family, friends and community networks.
We are prioritising all emergency treatment, critical care, maternity and neonatal care, as well as cancer clinics during the strike. We will only cancel appointments and procedures where it is necessary and will reschedule as soon as possible.
If the NHS has not contacted you, please attend your appointment as planned.
Thank you for your continued support.