Junior doctors' strikes make it 'almost impossible' for NHS to cut waiting lists

Striking junior doctors have made it "almost impossible" for the NHS to meet its targets of bringing down waiting lists, a health chief has said.

The NHS Confederation, which represents NHS trusts, warned this week's four-day walkout will have far reaching consequences for the health service, and derail previous plans set out for this year.

It comes as official data shows how excess deaths almost tripled after the first round of strikes in March, leading medics to be accused of putting "politics above patient safety".

Matthew Taylor, the Confederation's chief executive, said the ongoing strike will have increased the health service's backlog, while a fresh round could make it "almost impossible" to meet targets set earlier this year to reduce waiting lists.

He told LBC News: "We have coped reasonably well in the week in terms of being able to meet emergency critical care.

"The problem is that in order to do that we have had to put on hold a huge proportion of the outpatients work and the elective work we do.

"For example, yesterday I was on a surgical ward, that ward would normally have many junior doctors on it, it now had consultants on it. The consultants were coping fine.

"As they are doing that work their outpatients list is not being attended to, the list of people waiting for operations is growing. The backlog will have increased."

Mr Taylor added: "Another set of strikes would mean that it would become very very difficult, perhaps almost impossible, for the health service, hospitals to meet targets that they set this year for reducing waiting lists."

"Reducing the number of people waiting 18 months to only 30,000; reducing the number of people waiting a year; more diagnostic tests than ever before; responding to those diagnostic tests in terms of cancer particularly on target.

"So the NHS can make progress, is making progress, pushing into the backlog, but these strikes make that very very difficult."

Speaking about the expected result of a ballot over a Government pay offer to nurses, he said: "If the RCN ballot today is to reject we can only say to both sides, look you are not far apart please get down to talks and move ahead with it."

Of the junior doctors' pay dispute, Mr Taylor said: "Let us get into negotiations because hopefully if we negotiate we can create some goodwill and we can head off more damaging strike action."