Hello! It's a bit last minute, I know, but I would really appreciate it if anyone could take a look at this essay, and give me some pointers on what I could improve on.
The option of taking strike action should not be available to doctors as they have a special duty of care to their patients. Explain what is meant by this statement. Argue that it should be possible for doctors to go on strike as other workers do. To what extent should doctors’ duty of care to patients affect the conditions of their employment?
This statement is claiming that doctors should be unable to take industrial action, as they have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their patients that is unique to their medical professions. It implies that, in going on strike, doctors would compromise the care of their patients.
However, it can be argued that to strike is a human right, as all people should be allowed the freedom of expression to protest against unsuitable working conditions. If other professions have this right, it is only fair that it should be extended to doctors too, as they are as deserving of safe working conditions as any other human. A recent example of industrial action by doctors was the 2016 junior doctor strike, with the BMA stating it was over proposed removals of caps on working hours, leading to unsafe amounts of work undergone. The doctors would be permanently exhausted and therefore would not be in the right state of mind to be making life or death decisions with and for their patients. A tired doctor would be more likely to make mistakes, which they would not normally make, which could harm a patient, such as prescribing the wrong drug. If this became the norm, patients would be in danger all the time they are under the care of these doctors. Compared to this, the danger caused by 48 hours worth of strikes is trivial, and emergency measures put in place mean that, according to the BMJ, patient mortality does not increase during a strike. It is therefore safer for patients, and so better, if doctors make a stand in this way, rather than accepting conditions that put patients at risk.
A doctor’s duty of care to their patients should be the most important consideration in deciding working conditions, as an NHS core value is to put patients at the heart of everything it does, so duty of care should affect employment conditions to a very large extent. These conditions should never be such that a patient is put in danger. They must therefore consider that a doctor cannot carry out their duty of care if they are overworked and exhausted, and should seek to avoid this in any way possible, as compromising the care of patients goes against the core message of the NHS