Tens of thousands of appointments have been lost and surgeries have been postponed for up to six weeks as NHS workers walked out today.
Health minister Maria Caulfield said around 70,000 appointments, procedures and surgeries will be lost in England due to the strike and thousands more will be affected in Northern Ireland and Wales.
She told Sky News: “Cancer surgeries are going to be closed in those 44 trusts in England. We reckon it’s about 70,000 appointments, procedures, surgeries that will be lost.”
Professor Tim Orchard, chief executive of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, added that some surgery would have to be postponed for as long as six weeks.
Meanwhile, senior Tory MP Jake Berry said that the government “is going to have to improve its offer” to nurses to end strikes hitting the NHS.
“We need to find a way as a government, and the union does too, to get to that centre point, that point of agreement straight away,” he told Talk TV.
