Residents in Norfolk and Waveney are being urged to think NHS 111 first and to only attend an Emergency Department if it’s absolutely necessary to ensure that care is available to patients who need it most during planned industrial action by junior doctors next week.

The British Medical Association (BMA) has announced another set of strike action to run continuously for 72 hours from 7am on Wednesday 14 June 2023 to 7am on Saturday 17 June 2023.

The three-day strike will impact both routine and emergency care, which will significantly reduce the provision of planned or elective services to allow remaining staff to focus on providing emergency and inpatient care.

It is vital we keep as many beds as possible in our acute hospitals free for people needing urgent and emergency treatment, our community hospitals free to provide continuing care, and our ambulances on the road to respond to emergency calls.

It is really important people do not delay seeking help from the NHS if they feel unwell. The best way to get medical help you need, please visit 111.nhs.uk or call 111 for anything that feels urgent, or if you are unsure what to do. They can direct you to the most appropriate place. In life-threatening emergencies dial 999.

Things which everyone can do to help the NHS right now, include:

• Only call 999 or attend accident and emergency departments for serious accidents and for genuine emergencies, like chest pain, breathing difficulties, signs of a stroke or bleeding that won’t stop.

• If you need urgent mental health help, call 111 and choose the mental health option

• For non-urgent cases when needing medical advice and it’s not an emergency, speak to your GP practice or a pharmacist, or attend a minor injuries unit (Cromer) or walk in centre (Norwich).

• Please continue to treat all NHS and care staff with the respect they deserve.

If you have a medical appointment and are not contacted directly, you should continue to attend your appointment. If unable to make any NHS appointment, please contact the number on appointment letters so that it can be reallocated to another patient.

Our focus as a health and care system will be on maintaining emergency and life-preserving care during industrial action, especially seeing and treating patients with greatest clinical need. 

There will be a need to reduce the number of appointments and procedures planned and we appreciate how frustrating this can be for patients. Where appointments have had to be cancelled, these will be rescheduled as quickly as possible. We urge people to be kind and respectful towards our staff needing to reschedule elective care appointments.

We urge anyone to come forward for emergency services as normal and we are committed to keeping disruption in these services to a minimum.