Menu Picture of three small lines that users click on to reveal a list of links

More from news and media Picture of three small lines which when clicked on activate a menu with links to other pages

Industrial action update: junior doctors’ strike in April

Posted: 30 March 2023

Picture of Watford Hospital, St Albans City Hospital and Hemel Hempstead Hospital;

Our hospitals will remain open during the junior doctors' strike from 7am on Tuesday 11 April to 7am on Saturday 15 April.

We are working hard to make sure that as many services as possible run as usual. We will only cancel appointments and procedures where it is necessary and will reschedule immediately, where possible.

We will contact you if your appointment is affected. If we have not contacted you, please attend your appointment as planned.

For information on how our services will be affected, please see below:

 

If you need emergency care

Regardless of any strike action taking place, it is really important that patients who need urgent medical care continue to come forward as normal, especially in emergency and life-threatening cases.

Patients needing urgent treatment will be prioritised.

However, where appropriate, please use other non-hospital services for advice and treatment during this time, such as:

If you come to our emergency department and the clinical team there thinks this is not the best service for you, you may be redirected to another service.

If you have a planned procedure

If you have surgery booked at one of our hospitals during the 96-hour strike period, you may be contacted directly to rearrange your procedure.

If we have not contacted you, please attend your appointment as planned.

If you’re concerned and feel you need to speak to someone, please contact your clinical team using the contact information on your appointment letter or our patient advice and liaison service (PALS) at westherts.pals@nhs.net or by phone on 01923 217198 (from 8am – 4pm, Monday to Friday).

If you have an outpatient appointment

If we need to rearrange any outpatient appointments on the days of the strike, we will contact you directly to let you know.

If we have not contacted you, please attend your appointment as planned.

If you are an inpatient

We will have consultant cover in place across all our sites for the duration of the strike, along with cover by nursing staff and allied health professionals.

Please note, if the strike is cancelled patients should attend as normal.

 

Ends

  1. For media enquiries, please contact the communications team on: 01923 436280 or email: westherts.communications@nhs.net. For out of hours media enquiries please call the Watford General Hospital switchboard on 01923 244366 and ask for the on call communications manager.
  2. West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves people from across Hertfordshire, north London and further afield. It operates from three hospitals; Watford General, St Albans City and Hemel Hempstead. The trust has a catchment area of over 500,000 people and is one of the largest employers locally, with around 5,000 staff and volunteers.
  3. For more information about our hospitals, visit www.westhertshospitals.nhs.uk. You can also join our followers on Twitter (twitter.com/westhertsNHS) and find us on Facebook (facebook.com/westhertsNHS).