Photograph: James Manning/PA
In the Observer today:
One of Rishi Sunak’s key targets for the NHS – to eliminate waits of longer than 65 weeks for operations and other procedures by March – is likely to be missed because of strike action, health bosses warned this weekend.
The health service faces the longest national strike in its history when junior doctors walk out for six days from 7am on Wednesday. One NHS trust leader said he expected about a third of operations to be cancelled at his trust.
Strike action by consultants, junior doctors and nurses over the last year has hampered the work to reduce the waiting list for consultant-led elective care, which stood at more than 7.7 million at the end of October.
The British Medical Association (BMA) warned this weekend of the prospect of further strike action in 2024 by junior doctors unless the government made a credible offer.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/31/junior-doctors-nhs-strike-sunak-waiting-list-pledge
This story is nowhere on BBC England or BBC UK and only the Observer newspaper has it.
Imagine that was the BMA Scotland saying ‘Longest-ever NHS strike will sink Matheson’s waiting list pledge, say health chiefs’ ?
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Westminster Gov killing people who vote for them. An absolute scandal. Spending £1090Billion. NHS £125Billion. No increased funding for the NHS, No increase since 2015.
May election? To get rid of the Tories. Cannot come to soon. Vote SNP. Vote for Independence to get a better country and a better SNHS.
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NOT SURPRISING
THE ENGLISH MEDIA IN ALL ITS CORRUPTION WILL ALWAYS LIE TO ORDER FROM WESTMINSTER
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A caring media that doesn’t want to spread fear and alarm, within a year of a general election, among the people that the Tory Government is protecting from increased
taxation by not yielding to the demands of NHS staff in England.
Meeting these demands has cash strapped the Scottish Government so hard that it can’t even give rates relief to subsidise the hospitality industry that has been struggling to survive for at least twenty years.
Of course it is perfectly correct for the media and opposition parties to inform the people of Scotland, who will be paying more in income tax to pay the NHS staff more than anywhere else in the UK, the reason why the pubs that they can not longer afford to visit are closing.
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Haven’t you heard that Sunak and Hunt plan a £10 billion tax giveaway and scrapping Inheritance Tax which affects only the richest 1% in the UK. That money would easily end the junior doctors strikes in England and who knows with an extra few pounds in their pockets instead of in the bank accounts of the very wealthy, then some of that money might even be spent in pubs!
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Indeed I have heard of that too.
The last time the hospitality industry was in trouble Rishi Sunak responded with Eat Out to Help Out and it will probably be the same companies and groups who are the principal beneficiaries from the rates relief this time.
The Tories always look after their own..
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Would be headlines
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Would be headlines for weeks if it was Scotland
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Surprised the Observer carried the story, perhaps it was their turn to ‘be seen to be impartial’, but odds on there would be minimal naming of political parties or Ministers responsible, unlike Scotland’s media mafia…
It’s tragic that junior doctors have been driven to this, and even though SG managed to cobble a deal to avert strikes, it’s not going to encourage numbers studying medicine when Westminster is so determined to stifle wages, even introducing the ‘Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023’…
All because of their flawed ideology over economics….
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