Colchester Hospital boss Nick Hulme on strikes and waiting lists

No one can deny that Nick Hulme has an unenviable job. 

The CEO of East Suffolk and North Essex Trust, which runs Colchester Hospital, has had a lot on his plate in the last five years with the pandemic, doctors' strikes and always growing waiting lists. 

But at the forefront of Mr Hulme's mind is always the patients. 

He has spoken exclusively to the Gazette about the impact of junior doctor strikes, including January's six-day strike was the longest in NHS history, and the upcoming February strike.

As of writing, there are 792 junior doctors working in ESNEFT's Colchester and Ipswich hospitals as well as other medical settings.

Another junior doctor full walkout is planned from 7am on Saturday to midnight on Wednesday - the tenth junior doctor strike in a year. 

Disruption - Nick Hulme said the planned February strike being after half-term would create a big disruption (Image: Warren Page/Pagepix)

Mr Hulme said the upcoming February strike would have a deliberate "maximum impact" following what is traditionally the busiest months of the year in healthcare. 

It comes amid half-term which Mr Hulme said is "traditionally" one of the toughest weeks, with staff on annual leave. 

He said: "It the patients who pay the price, the patients that are suffering.

"That’s not a judgment about whether it is right or wrong to strike, it’s just a fact".

Mr Hulme said figures released from NHS England about the number of “rescheduled” appointments due to industrial action were a “massive underrepresentation.”

He said as well as cancelling patients which are already on the waiting list, “a large proportion” of slots are held back for emergencies and “all of those immediately get stopped”.

He said: “Let’s say we have 50 patients we have booked in for a gynaecology clinic over the two days, in addition to those 50 we will also have 25 open slots for whatever follows up there might be.

“We ‘cancel’ the 50, but 75 people are impacted. The only reports we see of NHS England is that 50 is cancelled and actually we’ve lost capacity for 75.”

Cost - Nick Hulme said regardless of whether strikes are right or wrong, patients are the ones who bear the cost (Image: Warren Page/Pagepix)

Mr Hulme said it is patients who pay the price of strike action and said as well as looking at the numbers there is a "psychological harm" of having to prepare yourself for a major operation and also financial harm for the self-employed. 

He said: “These are people waiting for maybe a knee replacement or a hip replacement. They would have already been waiting two years and they have been cancelled three time previously."

Another issue Mr Hulme claimed many did not know about the strikes, was the result of consultants stepping in to cover the striking juniors.

An orthopaedic consultant would have to cancel their list for the day to cover the strikes and if they then covered the evening or night, would have to cancel the next day due to safety meaning “you have lost two days of operating for potentially just the one”.

Mr Hulme added that after an initial period of “excitement” where seniors quite liked returning to their old roles, the enthusiasm is now “wearing thin”.

Despite running diagnostic tests and operations on weekends - Mr Hulme said you are as likely to get an MRI scan on Sunday or Saturday than Wednesday or Tuesday – there are “massive” NHS waiting lists building up.

Mr Hulme said that even after the junior doctor strikes end, he cannot see “waiting lists going back down to 18-weeks in the next five years” as they were pre-covid - with an exception being orthopaedics.

Now a record 7.6 million published people are on the NHS' waiting list - with a recent BBC report suggesting this figure is further underestimated when considering on-going care.   

Mr Hulme added: “People will be coming into harm in those lists.

“We are in a really vicious cycle, I can’t immediately see a way out of it."