'Call 111 before going to A&E during doctors strike' Wakefield and Pontefract hospitals trust warns

Resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, in the Wakefield district and around the country are set to go on strike in a dispute over pay and jobs.

The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS, which also runs Dewsbury and District Hospital, said it hoped to minimise disruption.

A trust spokesperson said: "We advise during the period of industrial action, where possible, that people call the NHS 111 service before coming to our emergency departments.

"NHS 111 call handlers are trained to help you and make sure you get the right urgent treatment in the right place.

"If anyone has an appointment or procedure due to take place at our Trust, please attend unless you are contacted to rearrange.

"We are actively working hard on plans to maintain 'business as usual', however there may be a small number of out-patient appointments or elective operations that may need to be rearranged, ensuring that we can provide urgent and emergency treatment to those who need it most."

The industrial action announcement followed a collapse in talks between the Government and the British Medical Association.

The strike will run from 7am on November 14 to 7am on November 19.

Dr Jack Fletcher, chair of the BMA's resident doctors committee, said: “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with the Government, pressing the Health Secretary to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed.

“We talked with the Government in good faith – keen for the Health Secretary to see that a deal that included options to gradually reverse the cuts to pay over several years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”

Mr Streeting has said he would not negotiate on pay after resident doctors received pay rises worth nearly 30 per cent in the past three years.

The BMA argued that pay is a fifth less than in 2008 when inflation is taken into account.