NHS strike action will only get worse over the course of the next month, the chief executive of the health service in England has said.
Amanda Pritchard, the NHS England boss, said on Sunday patients were “paying the price” for the dispute over pay and conditions.
“There has been a significant amount of disruption and that is only at the moment going to get more significant as we hit the next round of strikes,” she told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme.
“That’s seven of eight days in the middle of July when wee will see action.
“The hard truth is it is patients that are paying the price for the fact that all sides have failed to reach a resolution on this.”
Junior doctors are due to go on strike from 7am on July 13 until 7am on July 18. It will be the longest single walkout by doctors in the NHS’s history.
And adding to the pressure, senior doctors have also voted to go on strike for the first time in nearly 50 years.
A 48-hour walkout will take place on 20 and 21 July, after 86% of British Medical Association (BMA) members backed the move.
Last week further strikes by nurses were avoided when a Royal College of Nursing (RCN) ballot failed to reach the turnout threshold required for industrial action.
Steve Barclay, the health secretary, told the BBC the government was “working closely on how we mitigate the impact of industrial action”. But he said demands for a 35% pay rise was “not affordable”.
It comes after the government announced £2.4 billion of investment in the NHS over the next five years, which it said would see the NHS workforce in England grow by 300,000 people.