Hospital bosses are accused of encouraging doctors to profit from strikes by telling them to take up lucrative locum shifts to cover their colleagues who have walked out
- Earlier this week the Government said NHS medics would receive a 6% pay rise
- Read more: Junior doctors stage ‘longest strike in NHS history’ from TODAY
Hospital bosses were last night accused of encouraging doctors to profit from strikes by urging them to take up lucrative locum shifts during walkouts.
Correspondence sent to junior doctors states that staff would ‘still be considered to be striking’ even if they ‘picked up weekend shifts at enhanced rates’.
The memo, written by a Gateshead health trust employee, suggests doctors cover shifts as a locum during the five-day walkout that began on Thursday.
Earlier this week the Government confirmed NHS medics would receive a 6 per cent pay rise, in line with pay review body recommendations.
However the British Medical Association is still demanding 35 per cent. The memo to junior doctors says bosses ‘want to support all who wish to take industrial action’ but finding a ‘safe level of cover’ was ‘not an easy task’.
Hospital bosses were last night accused of encouraging doctors to profit from strikes by urging them to take up lucrative locum shifts during walkouts [File image]
Junior doctors hold placards at a picket line outside St Thomas’ Hospital in London
It reads: ‘We would like to remind all junior staff that we are seeking locum cover for the period of industrial action.You can cover shifts as a locum, and still be considered to be striking, so as long as you are not working hours that you would have covered. You can strike during the week and pick up weekend shifts at enhanced rates.’
A spokesman for the hospital trust said the arrangements were permitted under NHS guidelines.
Even doctors appeared to criticise the strategy, with one saying on the social media site Reddit: ‘I support my colleagues who choose not to strike, but those who seek to profit from it are a disgrace, especially when they will benefit from any pay restoration.’
A further contributor said: ‘You can choose to not strike but to locum on a strike day is below the belt.’
Another wrote: ‘There is a curious correlation between the locums scabbing strike days and the locums I wouldn’t trust with a blue cannula.’
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