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Industrial action taking place in June

Updated: 20 June 2024

Watford Hospital, St Albans City Hospital and Hemel Hempstead Hospital

Junior doctors at our trust will participate in national industrial action in June.

The British Medical Association (BMA) has announced that junior doctors will strike from 7am on Thursday 27 June to 7am Tuesday 2 July 2024.

Please be assured that we are working hard to ensure disruption to services is minimised at all our hospitals: Watford General Hospital, St Albans City Hospital and Hemel Hempstead Hospital.

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 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) via email: 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 strikes, along with cover by nursing staff and allied health professionals.

Please note, if the strikes are 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 the West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust's website. You can also join our followers on Twitter (twitter.com/westhertsNHS) and find us on Facebook (facebook.com/westhertsNHS).