NHS CEO orders hospitals to be tough with striking doctors and not 'tolerate harm and risk' to patients caused by major walkout starting this week
The British Medical Association has vowed emergency and maternity services will remain covered when medics walk out for five days from Friday.
But Sir Jim Mackey, the chief executive of NHS England, said that previous industrial action from residents - formerly junior doctors - had cause more harm to patients than previously thought.
Speaking ahead of the walkout he said the cancellation and postponement of elective surgery had had a major knock-on effect, telling the Sunday Times: 'We all tolerated levels of harm and risk last time that I really just don't think we should anymore.
'We'll be taking a different approach...
'I personally met patients and families in my trust (Newcastle), who'd had a late cancer diagnosis, a late Parkinson's diagnosis, who came to harm later on that were not caught in that initial assessment and reporting.'
The last round of strikes, which also included walkouts by other health workers, came at an estimated cost of £1.5 billion to the NHS in England.
Some 1.5 million appointments, procedures and operations were postponed as a result of the stoppages.
On Thursday, The Times reported that it had seen an audit which found that five patients died as a result of disruption linked to strikes by junior doctors in 2023 and 2024.
One prevention of future death report detailed how 71-year-old Daphne Austin, who had a kidney injury, died after getting 'no medical input' on one of the strike days because the consultant who was covering was in charge of 25 patients.
Another states that 60-year-old John Doyle died of 'natural causes against a background of missed opportunities to diagnose and treat cytomegalovirus infection, together with the impact of the resident (formerly junior) doctors' strike on the provision of consistent patient care'.
Last September resident doctors voted to accept a Government pay deal worth 22.3 per cent on average over two years.
The 2025/26 pay deal saw resident doctors given a 4 per cent increase plus £750 'on a consolidated basis', working out as an average rise of 5.4 per cent.
Government officials said these two increases equate to a 28.9 per cent pay rise.
But the BMA now says they need 29.2 per cent to reverse 'pay erosion' since 2008/09.
After meeting union leaders on Thursday, Health Secretary Wes Streeting reiterated that 'we cannot move on pay after a 28.9 per cent pay rise' but the Government is looking at ways to improve resident doctors' working lives.
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