The NHS in mid and south Essex will be working hard to keep people safe during the planned strikes, while delivering the best care possible.
The British Medical Association (BMA) representing resident doctors have informed the NHS that its members will be taking industrial action beginning at 7am on Friday 25 July until 7am on Wednesday 30 July.
Resident doctors make up around half of all doctors in the NHS. Resident doctors are qualified doctors who have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in general practice.
What is a resident doctor
Resident doctors work across the whole NHS in hospitals and Emergency Care and in GP practices.
In September 2024, the British Medical Association (BMA) officially changed the title “junior doctor” to “resident doctor” in the UK. This change aims to better reflect the experience and responsibilities of doctors in training, who were previously referred to as “junior doctors”. The BMA, along with the government, agreed on the change to eliminate the potentially misleading and demeaning connotations of the term “junior”.
During these strikes, other doctors (including consultants and other specialist doctors) will still be working. However, the disruption to staffing may mean some appointments and procedures may need to be rescheduled.
The NHS is also asking the public to play their part during industrial action to look after themselves, loved ones and checking in on vulnerable family members and neighbours. We have outlined below some actions you can take to help keep people save and make best use of NHS services.
GP practices
GP practices will be operating as normal during the strike action although as we have GP trainees some of these will also be on strike alongside resident doctors. We kindly ask for your patience as local healthcare teams work diligently to handle a high volume of calls and prioritise care. We will contact you if they need to rearrange any appointments. If you have not been told otherwise, please continue to attend any booked appointments.
Our phone lines are likely to be even busier than normal, so please be patient as practice staff try to help as many people as they can. If you have a computer or smartphone, you can use the NHS App or your GP practice’s e-consultation service, which directs your query quickly to the right member of practice staff and helps free up the telephone lines for those who aren’t online.