THE longest strike in NHS history led to more than 1,200 appointments being postponed by the trust which runs hospitals in mid Essex, it has been revealed.
Junior doctors downed tools for six days from January 3 as they called for better patient safety and a "35 per cent pay rise”.
This follows claims made by the British Medical Association doctors were subjected to a 26.1 per cent pay cut between 2008 and 2022.
As a result of the strikes, the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust (MSE) was forced to reschedule 1,167 outpatient appointments and 97 in-patient appointments and day cases.
Matthew Hopkins, chief executive at MSE, said: “As we also knew that we would not be able to fulfil appointments during the strike periods, patients were not booked in during that time, so the impact is likely to have been higher.
“Industrial action is highly disruptive to our patients and while emergency and cancer care continued, I would apologise to the other patients who were affected.
“My priorities are patient safety and staff welfare and this latest industrial took place during a very busy and difficult period.
"As ever, our dedicated staff did a brilliant job in providing services as best they could.”
Since April, 2023, the MSE Trust has had to “cancel” about 32,534 outpatient appointments” and about 4,502 impatient and day case surgeries.
The trust also said patients are “deliberately” booked onto a later date in case any expected strike action renders it unlikely earlier appointments could be fulfilled.
Before the strike a spokesman for the BMA said: “It is a shame - the Government could have avoided the unnecessary disruption to patients if they had presented a credible offer, especially if there was, as suggested by the Secretary of State, another offer for them to make.”
NHS England data shows that more than 113,000 patient operations, appointments, and procedures were postponed due to the January strike.
Since the health service strikes started in December, 2022 a total of 1,333,221 rescheduled inpatient and outpatient appointments have been recorded.
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