What do other hospital staff do when there's a strike?

[Rainmakerof69]

Surgeons for example? Do they pitch in with other work if they can't operate or do they go home because there's nothing for them to do?

They cover for junior colleagues, on wards or in a&e. They are definitely not sat round twiddling their thumbs.

Depends. Surgeons for example might cover for junior colleagues during the doctor's strike. Unlikely that they'd be covering for nurses. If they're on call they'll deal with emergencies, if their elective lists are cancelled they will probably be catching up on admin etc. There won't have been many elective lists today anyway, so most of them on leave for the bank holiday.

Nothing for them to do 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Hospital staff can only dream of having nothing to do! My dh can’t run his Endoscopy list this morning so he’s tackling the mountain of admin in his office - patient’s results, GP queries, phone calls to patients and relatives, emails etc… then he’s going to help on the ward.

Thanks for your replies, so senior Drs cover junior colleagues? I don't think teachers teach their striking colleagues lessons for example.
Also I thought consultants had secretaries for their admin work.

Of course they do the work of junior doctors when they are on strike. How else would inpatients be safe if there wasn’t a single dr around to review them, write prescriptions, provide emergency procedures, talk to the patients and their relatives? No one teaching is seriously not the same as not a single Dr being available for care. No one’s life is at immediate risk if there’s not a teacher available.

Secretaries do their specific admin, consultants have a shit ton of their own admin to do. Dictate and check letters, a billion emails a day, review referrals, keep themselves up to date in their speciality, contact other professionals regarding patient care, be involved in care pathways, input into clinical guidelines, clinical meetings, non clinical meetings, admin for meetings, plan surgeries, research, and so on, and so on.

Catch up on admin, mandatory training, etc. There are always piles of paperwork that need filling in and emails to sort out.

Consultants do have med secs for clinic management but they also have other things going on. There are numerous boards, committees, research grants, trainees, students to sort out. Let alone contacting GPs, chasing social care when your patient still hasn't been seen and their home situation has clearly deteriorated further, etc, etc.

Yeah but hospitals are still full of inpatients and emergencies coming in.
Secretaries can do a lot of things, but they can't dictate letters, order or interpret test results, take part in multi disciplinary meetings planning patient care and on and on.

In a perfect world maybe, but in the broken NHS there’s far more work than can ever be done by backup admin staff.

Secretaries can’t make clinical decisions about results, they can’t discuss patient treatment plans with GPs/patients/relatives, they can’t answer clinical questions from GPs or other HCPs. They shouldn’t have to read and answer the Consultant’s emails.
Also due to the down grading of medical secretaries and other admin staff there aren’t enough of them to go around.