NHS maintained 93% of planned care during resident doctors' strikes
Early data shows that 93% of planned operations, tests and procedures went ahead during the five-day walkout across England.
In previous walkouts, the majority of non-urgent care was postponed.
Fewer than a third of resident doctors, previously known as junior doctors, chose to join the strike, which ended on Wednesday morning.
The number was down by 7.5% (1,243) on the previous round of industrial action in July last year, according to the early analysis of management information collected by NHS England.
NHS chief executive Sir James Mackey noted that care was still disrupted for thousands of people.
He said: 'While this is really good news for the vast majority of patients whose treatment went ahead, we should still acknowledge that there were thousands whose care was disrupted.
'NHS staff will continue to work hard to ensure patients can get their rescheduled care as soon as possible, but for those patients – and for all our staff who had to work extra shifts or with different responsibilities – a repeat of this action will be unacceptable.
'So, I would urge the Resident Doctors Committee to get back to the negotiating table and work with us and the Government on the meaningful improvements we can make to resident doctors' working lives.'
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: 'I want to again thank staff from across the NHS who have put in an incredible shift to make sure that the NHS was open to as many patients as possible over the five days of unnecessary strike action.'
Mr Streeting said earlier this week that he 'never left' the negotiating table, and that he is willing to meet with the resident doctors committee of the British Medical Association (BMA) to resume talks in their ongoing dispute over pay and working conditions.
But he also warned that 'it should be clear to the BMA by now that it will lose a war with this Government'.
NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts, said the walkout took a toll and that trusts are concerned about potential wider industrial action in the health service.
'Even though trusts cancelled fewer appointments than before, the strike still took its toll on patients and an already stretched NHS,' Saffron Cordery, NHS Providers deputy chief executive, said.
She said NHS trust leaders want to focus on improving services instead of dealing with strikes, which she said have set back progress in cutting waiting lists.
She added: 'This dispute can't drag on. The union says resident doctors want this to be their last strike. With talks due to resume, let's hope so. Bringing disruptive strikes – where the only people being punished are patients – to an end must be a priority.
'We're concerned, as trusts worked hard to minimise disruption and to keep patients safe during the resident doctors' strike, by the threat of wider industrial action in the NHS.'
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ADMINISTRATOR OZ: Well, they can— MARGARET BRENNAN: Is this in the app? DR. OZ: Yes, it will be in the app. The app, again, this is being developed by the United States Digital Service, led by Amy Gleason, who is a wonderful technologist. She and I were with the President and Secretary Kennedy and the head of the czar for AI in this country on Wednesday, talking about overall how we're going to change the use of health technology in America. We've got to get into 2025 with health technology, as is true in every other sector. If you're watching the show right now, you could also be streaming media. You could take an Uber somewhere, the rideshare. You could do an Airbnb. Technology should make the system more efficient. We should have confidence that it will also allow us to do what we all agree is possible. If the whole challenge to a work requirement is that you don't have confidence in our ability to accomplish it, that's a separate question, because I do have confidence in the American people, and we have confidence we can pull this off. Look at the passport system, Margaret. Right now, you can go and get a passport in two weeks without having to go to the post office, send pictures, and all that's gone. It's fixable. Let's use technology. MARGARET BRENNAN: I'm still confused on how someone who is in the throes of substance abuse is going to use an app to say, I'm in the throes of substance abuse every week, to file on online— DR. OZ: —When they go in to get their help for their substance abuse treatment, assuming they're going for help on that, they can also get enrolled in, in those requirements, can be fulfilled. We want to talk to them in as many ways as possible. 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The money is designed to help you with workforce development, right sizing the system and using technology to provide things like telehealth that can change the world. Imagine if we can change the way we think about the delivery of health and make it more about getting people healthy so they can thrive and flourish and be fully present in their own lives and as Americans. MARGARET BRENNAN: Dr Oz, we'll leave it there. We'll be back in a moment.
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The following is the transcript of an interview with Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Aug. 3, 2025. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to New Mexico's Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. She joins us from Santa Fe. Governor, two out of five New Mexicans are on Medicaid. You've got a lot of rural hospitals. Have you figured out how to implement everything Dr. Oz just laid out? GOV. LUJAN GRISHAM: Absolutely not. There is no real way to implement this. It's more paperwork for everyone. It's more paperwork for federal government, for state governments, for county governments, for local hospitals, for independent providers. And you know what Americans really hate, Margaret? When you go to your primary care physician and you spend 20 minutes sitting at a chair, not even on the exam table, while they are inputting data into a computer. So this doesn't make any sense. We should be a society and a country that is connecting people to healthcare providers. I think the one thing that Dr. Oz represents that's a fair representation, is we should be healthier as Americans. All right. We need to be moving out of poverty. We need drug prices- we should talk about that, to come down. So go after insurance companies. Do manufacturing here. Make sure we can negotiate fair prices. Let states do that, because I guarantee you, we'll do a better job than the federal government. And lastly, get people early, easy access today, more than half, or about half, our small businesses don't even offer health care coverage. So you can get a job. but now what? MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah, well, you said, though- in your state, because as a governor, you're going to have to figure this out. You have reserve cash from some oil and gas revenues, as I understand it, that have been put aside. Doesn't that show it is possible for the federal government to shift more responsibility back to the states? That's the argument conservatives are making. GOV. LUJAN GRISHAM: They are and it's temporary. There is no way any state, including this one—which, frankly, I am really proud of, we are in really good financial shape that takes planning and effort. You know, our job projections continue to be met and exceed, unlike the federal jobs report, which is going in the opposite direction. So I don't know where all these jobs are going to be in this anemic economy. I mean, it's so bad. The last time it was this bad, I was in college, and let me tell you, that was a very long time ago. And so yes, temporarily we can do that. But you can't do it over the long haul. The lost minimally to New Mexico over less than a decade is between 12 and $13 billion dollars and when, not if, rural hospitals and local providers close their doors. I can do this better than any other state. The last governor completely canceled behavioral health. Six years later, we are still reeling from trying to rebuild. We put a billion dollars into behavioral health just this last legislative session. It is not so easy to rebuild something out of nothing. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the $50 billion Rural Health Care Fund under this Republican law is supposed to give people the— your—states like yours, the ability to come and say, we need this extra cash. Are you going to have to ask for that? GOV. LUJAN GRISHAM: I'm going to ask for every dollar the federal government has put aside anywhere that benefits a New Mexican. So you got 50 billion. That's $1 billion for each state, if it was even. Do you know how much money it would take to shore up rural hospitals? More than a billion. And to put that in perspective—let me do this, it's a billion just for behavioral health, it's a billion plus just to keep people's coverage, it's another billion for prescription drugs, it's a billion dollars for rural provider delivery investments, and that's only 50 hospitals. You have hundreds of hospitals. Hundreds. 400 rural hospitals across America that will shutter. So that's the number at it is. We are- how do we pick these rural hospitals? And if you pick a Southeastern rural hospital in New Mexico, what about the rural hospital in western New Mexico. Economies fail. People have to move away. You don't have any OBGYN care. That whole area collapses, and they are reducing rural health care delivery by about 134 billion. So the 50 billion is just to make someone somewhere feel like they recognize that this is a disaster. $900 billion out of Medicaid is catastrophic, straight up. MARGARET BRENNAN: Governor, we ran through a lot of material here. I have more questions for you, but very quickly—can you tell me—you deployed the National Guard to counter unrest in New Mexico. How is that different from what the president did in California? GOV. LUJAN GRISHAM: Well, they're not policing. They're doing the back end work so that trained community policing, and members of that training, right—those local police officers, they're on the streets. What we have in this country is a shortage of police officers. What I have in New Mexico is a partnership. So they're doing all of the—they answer all of the emergency calls. They handle all the traffic clearance when we've got a crash. And it is working, we're beginning to see more productive fentanyl drug dealing high end arrests than we did without the guard. And I'm really proud of that work. This is about partnering and leveraging, not about indiscriminately going after individuals who have not committed serious crimes. MARGARET BRENNAN: Thank you for your time today. 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