NHS hospitals will operate at full capacity for just four days over the next three weeks, it emerged today.
Strike woes will rock facilities over the festive period, which is typically the busiest time of year for the healthcare system.
Combined with the weekends, this means that only four days (December 27, 28, 29 and January 2) will be unaffected by the looming chaos of the holidays and strikes until January 10.
Health chiefs warned the move risks causing misery to thousands of patients and causing 'massive disruption'.
It comes as union bosses today also threatened more strikes if the government's pay offer for consultants is rejected.
Junior doctors in England have voted for new strikes in December and January after talks between the government and the British Medical Association collapsed
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Consultants from the British Medical Association (BMA) are currently voting on a deal that could earn them up to an extra £20,000.
The union announced that its action mandate had been extended for another six months.
It means that if members reject No. 10's deal – which is in addition to a pay increase already handed out – they can strike until June 18, 2024.
Separately, specialist and specialist (SAS) doctors are also voting on a similar deal.
The Department of Health said it hopes it will address “imbalances” in pay scales for staff on different contracts.
The offer proposes changes to pay scales for SAS doctors on 2021 contracts, with an additional increase of between 6.10 percent and 9.22 percent.
If accepted, the increases will take effect from January 2024 and will have no impact on any individual future awards decided by the 2024/25 pay review process.
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, National Medical Director of the NHS, said today: 'These strikes come at a time that will cause huge disruption to the NHS, with services already feeling the strain of winter pressures.
'If you include the Christmas and New Year holidays, these strikes will extend that period of reduced activity and also put the healthcare system on the back foot into the new year, a time when we are seeing a significant increase in demand.
'During the holiday period I would encourage anyone requiring medical attention to continue to come forward – in a life-threatening emergency, call 999 and use emergency services as usual. For everything else, use 111 online.'
Thousands of trainee doctors will leave their posts three days before Christmas, starting on December 20. Another six days of action – the longest in the 75-year history of healthcare – are scheduled from January 2.
Staff will work on a 'Christmas Day' basis during both periods of industrial action, meaning emergency support will continue to be provided.
Ministers and representatives of the BMA had been locked in negotiations for five weeks in an attempt to find a solution to the long-running pay dispute.
Professor Sir Stephen Powis (pictured in June), National Medical Director of the NHS, said today: 'These strikes come at a time that will cause huge disruption to the NHS, with services already feeling the strain of winter pressures. “If you factor in the Christmas and New Year holidays, these strikes will extend that period of reduced activity and also put the healthcare system on the back foot into the new year, a time when we see demand starting to increase significantly.”
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Thousands of trainee doctors will leave their posts for three days before Christmas, starting on December 20. A further six days of action are planned from January 2 – the longest in the 75-year history of healthcare. ' basis for both periods of industrial action, meaning that emergency aid will continue to be provided. Pictured are BMA members outside the Conservative Party Conference in October
But the union said its junior doctors committee voted unanimously in favor of further strikes after accusing the Department of Health and Social Care of failing to make a “credible” offer.
They said the Government's three per cent increase, on top of the average 8.8 per cent increase they received in the summer, was 'completely insufficient'.
Last winter, which also saw NHS staff take to the picket lines, was one of the worst ever for England's healthcare system.
The NHS has now endured a full calendar year of strikes, the first of which took place on December 15, 2022. Since then, more than 1.1 million hospital and outpatient appointments have been rescheduled.
The latest NHS figures show 7.7 million Patients are currently requiring routine treatment, one of the highest figures since NHS registration began in August 2007 and an increase of 490,000 from October 2022.
By comparison, around 4.4 million people were stuck in the system when the pandemic reached Britain.
Separate figures released last week also show that flu and the winter vomiting virus norovirus are putting further pressure on hospitals, with the number of patients using NHS beds rising by two-thirds in just one week.
Prime Minister at the time Rishi Sunak, who made reducing waiting lists one of his priorities for 2023, warned that the coming strike action would making it 'difficult' to continue to clear the backlog.
He urged medics to 'do the right thing' and call off the industrial action.