Hospital warns of disruption ahead of junior doctor strikes

Ahead of junior doctor strikes starting this week, residents are being urged by Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital to only attend emergency departments if “absolutely necessary.”

The British Medical Association (BMA) has announced another set of strike action to run continuously for 72 hours from 7am on Wednesday June 14 to 7am on Saturday June 17.

The three-day strike will impact both routine and emergency care, which will significantly reduce the provision of planned or elective services to allow remaining staff to focus on providing emergency and inpatient care.

There will be a need to reduce the number of appointments and procedures planned.

The following advice has been given out to help the NHS:

• Only call 999 or attend accident and emergency departments for serious accidents and for genuine emergencies, like chest pain, breathing difficulties, signs of a stroke or bleeding that won’t stop.

• If you need urgent mental health help, call 111 and choose the mental health option.

• For non-urgent cases when needing medical advice and it’s not an emergency, speak to your GP practice or a pharmacist, or attend a minor injuries unit (Cromer) or walk in centre (Norwich).

• Please continue to treat all NHS and care staff with the respect they deserve.

• If you have a medical appointment and are not contacted directly, you should continue to attend your appointment. If unable to make any NHS appointment, please contact the number on appointment letters so that it can be reallocated to another patient.

A spokesperson from the QEH said: “We urge people to be kind and respectful towards our staff needing to reschedule care appointments.

“We urge anyone to come forward for emergency services as normal and we are committed to keeping disruption to a minimum.”