Video: Your diagnosis as doctors walk out

As doctors up and down the country take part in industrial action for the first time in 37 years, the union spoke out to dispel “partial representations of the facts”.

Andrew Lansley’s claims that taxpayers subsidise £4 out of every £5 of doctors’ pensions is false, the union said.

A spokesman said: “The NHS pension scheme does not work by building up a pension pot - staff working now pay for the pensions of NHS staff who are retired.

“The scheme currently brings in £2 billion more than it pays out - this money goes back to the Treasury.”

Doctors’ participation in the action has varied up and down the country.

In some places up to a quarter of GP surgeries are affected by the action. But in other areas “only a handful” of doctors are taking part.

Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust said 14 operations and 146 outpatient appointments were cancelled due to the action. The Trust usually performs 306 operations a day and sees around 461 outpatients.

Across London, 90% of hospitals are working normally, an NHS London spokesman said.

Hospitals in the capital have had to reschedule around 490 operations and reschedule 3,200 outpatient appointments.

There are 17% of GP practices providing a reduced service as a result of the action.

Of the 500 GPs in NHS Bedfordshire and Luton, 94 took part in the action, affecting 25% of practices in the county.

In Herefordshire, four out of 25 practices had GPs taking part in the action.

At Wye Valley NHS Trust, eight of 37 operations were rescheduled and 52 of 597 outpatient appointments were called off.

NHS Hospitals in Nottingham saw seven of 140 operations cancelled.

In Dudley, all 53 GP practices remained open. Five practices confirmed they would be taking part in the action.

At the Medway NHS Foundation Trust, no operations were cancelled.

In Kent and Medway, there is at least one GP taking part in the action at 77 of the 273 practices in the area.

There were 331 outpatients cancelled in hospitals in Barking, Havering and Redbridge. While 843 outpatient appointments are going ahead as planned.

In Leeds, very “few doctors” declared they would be taking part, a spokeswoman for Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said.

Of 44 outpatient clinics due to be held at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust, only nine clinics have been affected.

Colchester General Hospital and Essex County Hospital have rescheduled 13 non emergency appointments. This equates to about one eighth of the total number of non-emergency operations. Of 1,200 outpatient appointments, 160 were rebooked for another day.

A spokesman said: “The longest anyone will have to wait for a new outpatient appointment is three to four weeks.”

There were no reports of queues or long waits at NHS walk-in centres around Tyneside.

In Jarrow, South Tyneside, a member of staff at the walk-in centre said few surgeries were affected and most GPs were working, and in Bensham, Gateshead, a worker said there was no long waits, while the walk-in centre in Westgate Road, Newcastle, was reported to be working normally.

Outside the Princes Park Health Centre in Eastbourne, East Sussex, patients reported normal service but opinion was divided over whether industrial action was necessary.

Linda Law, 58, from nearby Pevensey, said: “I had an injection and I was straight in, straight out. There were no queues in there at all. I wasn’t worried because I had made an appointment so I didn’t think there would be a problem.”

On whether the strike was justified, she said: “Doctors work very hard. I think I would support them. They deserve it, and my doctor is fantastic, but if it really affected me I possibly wouldn’t.”

Trainee accountant Shannan Barrett, 21, from Eastbourne, said: “It was fine and fast. I was in and out. There were no delays and I was in there for about 10 minutes.

“I think doctors deserve good pensions. When you think that footballers get millions of pounds for kicking a football around, I think doctors deserve it.”

But another woman, who declined to be named, disagreed.

She said: “I don’t think doctors should strike. They are well paid but it’s their decision, like in all walks of life.”

Another patient said she could not support the doctors’ cause because she felt their existing earnings and pension benefits were already generous enough.

She said: “If it was a case of somebody like me and they were striking because they were low paid then I would say yes, strike, as that’s the only comeback they have got.

“But if I was dying, what would happen?”

The BMA announced the action last month after it accused ministers of pressing ahead with “totally unjustified” increases in pension contributions and a later retirement age for doctors, even though a deal on pensions was agreed four years ago.

All non-urgent work would be postponed, the BMA said, adding that although the action will be disruptive, doctors will ensure patient safety is protected.

Doctors will see anyone who is ill, or who believes they are ill, but will not do paperwork.

Accident and emergency departments and maternity services are running as normal, and tests for critical conditions such as cancer are still available.

But some non-emergency hospital clinics, outpatient appointments and planned surgery may have been be postponed.

GP practices remain open but some may have postponed routine appointments which can be rearranged for another day.

According to Mr Lansley, the planned action could see up to 30,000 operations cancelled, 58,000 diagnostic tests postponed and 200,000 outpatient appointments rescheduled.

Up to 1.25 million GP appointments will be pushed into the days and weeks following the action, he said.

The last time doctors took action was in 1975, when consultants suspended goodwill activities and worked to contract over a contractual dispute, and junior doctors worked to a 40-hour week because of dissatisfaction with the progress of contract negotiations.

In Derbyshire, no doctors at the Rectory Road Medical Centre had taken industrial action.

A notice pinned up in the reception of the surgery in Staveley said: “Whilst all at Holywell Medical Group agree with the BMA stance, the doctors have decided to put the best interests of our patients first and, as a gesture of goodwill, not to take part in the industrial action.

“Therefore, there will be no disruption or change to patient services on the day of action.”

A receptionist at the practice said she and patients had so far not experienced any problems dealing with external services that may be taking part in the strike and said the day has been “calmer than normal”.

Staveley local Amanda Whitehead, 32, said she had an appointment with a doctor this morning but it was delayed by an hour and 20 minutes.

“I don’t know if that was anything to do with the strike, I wasn’t told anything,” she said.

Asked what she thought of doctors taking part in the industrial action, she said: “I don’t know really, I don’t know much about it.”

Patients at an NHS walk-in centre in North Ormesby, Middlesbrough, said some services had been affected, but had mixed views on whether the protest was justified.

Andrew Spencer, 37, a scaffolder, said: “I rang my doctors’ this morning and they told me they were on strike and sent me here.

“I could understand the nurses complaining but I can’t understand the doctors whinging about money. I’d say they have a cushy life as it is compared to most.”

But Kenneth Pickering, 56, a carer for his wife, said doctors were right to express their discontent.

“It’s their right to take industrial action,” he said.

“They deserve good pensions because they do a good job. And some emergency doctors work over 24 hours.”

He said the surgery was “empty” after many patients had appointments cancelled or rescheduled, adding: “If you’ve still got an appointment you get seen straight away.”

University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust said that 27 operations had been cancelled. On a normal Thursday, 420 non-emergency surgeries would take place.

A spokeswoman said that 118 of 4,200 outpatient appointments were postponed.

The Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust said that just nine planned operations have been rescheduled and about 100 outpatient appointments were called off.

In the south west of England no GP surgeries were closed, with 671 of 1,821 having at least one member of staff taking part in the action. A spokesman for NHS South of England said 468 of 5,000 non-urgent operations were rebooked for another date.

Almost 3,500 outpatient appointments were affected compared with an average 47,000 outpatient attendances daily, the spokesman said.

In NHS Cumbria 38 GP surgeries out of 81 had someone taking part.