OPINION
Wes Streeting is wrong about junior doctor strikes (Image: PA)
The strike announcement by the British Medical Association should have come as no surprise to Wes Streeting. If it did, he's even worse at his job than I gave him credit for last week. While he puts out messages appealing to the BMA to help rebuild the NHS together, or some such nonsense, the strike result shows just how little grip Labour has on the problems facing our healthcare system. When I had meningitis a few years ago the junior doctors were on strike for most of my time in hospital.
A consultant told me that it meant I received a higher standard of care. After I got out of hospital I complained to the Trust and the watchdog about the poor standard of care I received from the consultants. The junior doctors were so much better. Now, as a 45-year-old with incurable bowel cancer, I'm prepared for the possibility that some of my treatment may be disrupted because of the strikes.
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And, when it comes to a choice between supporting Wes Streeting and supporting the strikers, I back the striking doctors every day of the week.
I've walked past their consultation rooms in my hospital and seen looking frazzled and burnt out at 10am. I've seen their sunken dead eyes desperately trying to stay awake in the queue for an overpriced coffee.
I've been there at the weekend when the only onsite option for food for medical staff working is a vending machine selling packs of microwavable rice and mini tubes of Pringles, and maybe a chocolate bar or two.
I've been flabbergasted at how the coffee shop can justify ripping off cancer patients and doctors with ￡4.04 ham sandwiches, which are just two pieces of sad looking white bread and the thinnest ham anyone has ever seen.
And, on the wider issues, I've been absolutely appalled at the way that physician associates (PAs) have been put into hospital trusts across the UK. Wes Streeting has shown he isn't on the side of patients because he has let this happen.
(These are people who do a two-year masters degree, after doing a degree which should supposedly be in biosciences, and are sold the lie that they can be at the same level as doctors.)
I've notified the hospital trusts where I'm a patient that I never want a PA to have any part in my treatment and advise everyone else to do the same.
Trying to pretend they are as good as doctors and putting them in to plug the gap is dangerous both for patients and the future of the NHS.
But I wonder whether Wes Streeting actually really cares about its future.
While junior doctors are delighted to find a pen that works, the Health Secretary can relax knowing that Labour Party funder Peter Hearn has sent him donations for staffing costs. Hearn just happens to head up a company called OPD Group Ltd, which has links to private healthcare.
So when the strikes start and Wes Streeting goes on TV pretending to be a man of the people, ask yourself whether he really is.
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Because for me these strikes aren't so much about the junior doctors wanting a pay rise in an attempt to clear their ￡100k debt more quickly, and to be able to afford a hospital coffee shop sandwich, they are about the future of the NHS.
I'd like them to inspire the Prime Minister to do a Cabinet reshuffle and to dump Wes Streeting on the backbenches.
It's unlikely this will happen but the longer he's in control of the health service the more damaged it will be.
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