The planned closure of an A&E department will not go ahead after a doctor’s strike was called off.<\/p>\n
Cheltenham General Hospital’s A&E was due to close on Sunday at 20:00 BST and reopen on Monday as a minor injury and illness unit until Friday.<\/p>\n
But on Saturday, the British Medical Association (BMA) announced that the four-day resident doctor strike would be suspended after a new pay offer from the government.<\/p>\n
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said it was too late to reinstate cancelled appointments on Monday, but health chiefs were working to reorganise those scheduled from Tuesday to Thursday.<\/p>\n
The NHS trust said in a statement: \u00ab\u00a0While this late change means some disruption to services is unavoidable, we are working quickly to restore services wherever possible.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Patients are advised to attend as planned unless contacted directly.<\/p>\n
Dr Jack Fletcher, chair of the BMA’s resident doctor committee, said: \u00ab\u00a0All we have asked for is a fair offer that secures enough jobs to tackle the madness of doctor unemployment and take steps to address the erosion of our pay.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Tens of thousands of frontline doctors will now vote in a referendum on whether this offer is sufficient.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Doctors will now have their say. If they say no to this offer we will have to continue our plans for further escalated action across next month.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Health Secretary James Murray said the new offer was a \u00ab\u00a0chance to draw a line under the damaging disputes of recent years\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
He added: \u00ab\u00a0The country simply cannot afford to increase the pay offer for this year. I am pleased that the BMA have recognised this, which has allowed us to make progress in other areas, such as training places and working conditions.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
The walkout had been due to run from 07:00 on Monday until 06:59 on Friday. It would have been the 16th in the long-running dispute over pay.<\/p>\n
Follow BBC Gloucestershire on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The planned closure of an A&E department will not go ahead after a doctor’s strike was called off. Cheltenham General Hospital’s A&E was due to close on Sunday at 20:00 BST and reopen on Monday as a minor injury and illness unit until Friday. But on Saturday, the British Medical Association (BMA) announced that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}