A RENOWNED doctor has resigned from a top medical union after slamming “highly dangerous” planned strikes by medics.
Professor Lord Robert Winston – who pioneered IVF treatments in the UK – has quit after more than 60 years as a member of the British Medical Association (BMA), ahead of strike action later this month.
ITVProfessor Winston has called upcoming strikes by doctors ‘highly dangerous’[/caption]
AlamyResident doctors (formerly known as junior doctors) will strike for five days from July 25 in a dispute over pay[/caption]
GettyThe professor has urged the BMA to reconsider its strike action[/caption]
Earlier this week, the BMA announced that resident doctors (previously known as junior doctors) in England would walk out for five straight days from 7am on July 25 over pay disputes.
The professor, 84, who came to fame through his TV documentaries on child development, believes “now isn’t the time” for strikes as they risk “long-term damage” to the public’s faith in doctors.
He told The Times: “I’ve paid my membership for a long time. I feel very strongly that this isn’t the time to be striking.
“I think that the country is really struggling in all sorts of ways, people are struggling in all sorts of ways. Strike action completely ignores the vulnerability of people in front of you.”
Professor Winston, who has been a member of the union ever since he qualified as a doctor, quit the BMA on Thursday but has urged the union to reconsider its decision.
He stressed that it’s “important that doctors consider their own responsibility much more seriously”.
The TV professor was made a life peer in 1995 and has presented a number of major scientific BBC series including Child of Our Time and The Human Body.
He hopes that the BMA will abandon its strike plans and work with ministers to negotiate solutions with the government and bring about improvements to “appalling” working conditions and night shifts.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting called for resident doctors to “abandon their unreasonable rush to strike” and said that NHS recovery is “fragile”.
Mr Streeting told the Commons on Thursday: “We have put the NHS on the road to recovery, but we all know that the NHS is still hanging by a thread, and that the BMA is threatening to pull it.”
This comes after NHS waiting lists fell to their lowest point for two years.
The backlog was down to 7.36 million in May, from a peak of 7.77 million in 2023.
Hospitals had their busiest May on record with 75,000 treatments, 80,000 scans and 78,000 A&E visits every day.
However, health chiefs warned that staff’s efforts could go to waste if the BMA’s five-day strike goes ahead at the end of the month.
Waiting lists were the highest in history during the last run of strikes and are expected to rise again if the walkout drags on.
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AlamyProfessor Winston had been a member of the BMA for more than 60 years until he quit the union yesterday[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
