From what?

No man’s land.

A rock and a hard place.

Where are we? Some kind of purgatory? Limbo…

… that’s it. I knew there was a word for it. Limbo.

We are stuck in a bonkers limbo where TV journalists stand on windswept corners telling us what they told us last time.

Where young men and women say all the things they said last time.

Welcome to the ground-hog world of picket-lines, posters, leaflets, banners and honking horns.

Doctors on strike, boring.

The news agenda has moved-on, to the travails of a promiscuous lout, backtracking on ‘the green-thing’ and a fall in inflation.

The caravan has moved-on… the dogs may be barking but no one is listening.

In October the doctors will be on strike again and the news coverage will become even thinner.

Unless…

… unless, the indications we are starting to see, gather momentum…

… unless, it all starts to unravel…

… unless the hotly disputed early data, telling us excess deaths increase during doctor’s strikes, becomes a statistical reality.

A study carried out before the present round of strikes says there is no relationship.

The HSJ report the claim from Bully-Boy; recent strikes were responsible for 22 critical incidents… probably true.

Broadcasters say; deaths rose after the first round of doctor’s strikes… and will be looking for stories.

Common-sense tells us someone, somewhere will come to grief because their turn in the queue was cancelled.

Experience lets us know an aggrieved family will discover the consultant, their beloved-granny, or Mum or sister who they have just buried, was supposed to see, was on strike on that day.

Human nature tells me a no-win-no-fee-lawyer will take up the case with the GMC…

… there will be an almighty row a consultant will end-up, struck-off and the flood gates will open.

Far fetched? I’m not so sure.

During the 2016 junior doctor’s strike the GMC took the unusual step of issuing a warning to striking doctors.

The Guardian reported;

‘… Junior doctors have been told by the General Medical Council that they should call-off their planned five-day strike for later this month…

… and that putting patients at risk of significant harm could lead to them being struck off.’

The strikes were fairly light touch and Consultants covered, for no extra pay.

This time the GMC have done nothing. The strikes are more aggressive, consultants who are not striking are charging huge fees to provide cover.

The risks of harm, higher.

The difference is; the GMC, in 2016, was run by people who thought it was their role to protect patients, knew what they were doing and got on and did it.

This time; the GMC appears to be run by people who don’t think it is their role to protect patients, don’t know what they are doing, so do nothing.

I am no statistician, neither am I Mystic Meg but I have been around for long enough to work out, people on waiting lists are not there for fun.

They are there because of a clinical priority, concern or a mystery.

Delays in dealing with their priority puts them in harm’s way, could turn concern into a casualty and mystery into misery.

In 2016, the NHS wasn’t in great shape and the row was about a new contract for doctors.

The strikes ended when the secretary of state of the day Jeremy Hunt, gave up trying to talk an end to the dispute, imposed the contract and finished it.

In 2023, the NHS is in much worse shape and the row is about restoring doctors’ pay, which has been neglected by successive administrations largely because the BMA have been biddable, weak and dozy.

The risks are higher.

Much higher. Because of Covid people are sicker, population health poorer, waiting lists are longer and the chance that strikes are harmful, dangerous, likely to end in grief, is obvious to everyone but the GMC.

The GMC are responsible to members of the Privy Council, senior MPs. What are they doing? Nothing as far as I can tell.