MORE than 1,400 operations and appointments across Bradford have been cancelled due to this week's strike by junior doctors, the district's two hospital trusts have revealed.

The first all-out junior doctors' strike in NHS history is set to take place tomorrow and Wednesday, with staff walking out from 8am to 5pm each day.

The Department of Health said the industrial action, which it claims surrounds the sole issue of Saturday pay, will put "patients in harm's way", but one local junior doctor said the strike was in response to the NHS being "eroded piece by piece."

The bitter dispute surrounds new contracts set to be imposed from next summer on doctors working up to consultant level.

The strike has caused 1,067 operations and appointments scheduled to take place at Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI) and St Luke's Hospital over the two-day period to be cancelled.

Bernie Bluhm, interim director of operational management at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: "Extensive planning and preparation has been undertaken and robust arrangements are in place to ensure that patient safety and levels of care are not compromised by industrial action.

"All essential services such as emergency and urgent surgery will continue as normal.

"We have worked hard to minimise the cancellation of routine outpatient appointments and clinics, but unfortunately in order to provide safe emergency services, we are rescheduling 861 routine outpatient appointments and 206 surgical procedures."

At Airedale General Hospital, around 385 procedures and appointments have been affected by the strike.

Stacey Hunter, director of operations at Airedale NHS Foundation Trust said: "Patient safety is our priority, and we have worked with our staff, including consultants, nurses, other health professionals and union representatives, to come up with plans to ensure high-quality and safe care and welfare can be maintained.

"All urgent and emergency care is still going ahead.

"However, there has been a need to rearrange around 35 non-emergency operations and approximately 350 outpatient appointments.

"Anyone whose appointment or operation has been affected has been contacted.

"We are sorry for the inconvenience and will do our best to reschedule these as soon as possible."

A further two appointments at Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust have also had to be postponed.

The strike comes as both hospitals report an increase in the number of patients accessing their emergency departments.

Between January and March, BRI saw a 12 per cent increase in attendance at A&E compared to the same period last year.

At Airedale, the increase in patient numbers was slightly less at nine per cent, with both hospitals stating a "similar picture" was reported in many emergency departments across the country.

Dr Lauren Robson, a junior doctor working in Bradford and a single parent to a five-year-old, said the escalation of the strike action illustrated the strength of feeling among her colleagues in the NHS.

"It is an utter travesty that as doctors who sacrifice so much of our lives for our patients we are backed into such a corner that we feel that withdrawing our labour is our only option," she said.

"Despite our senior colleagues covering us in the hospitals and continuing to care for patients on the strike days next week, none of us want to be withdrawing our labour.

"I cannot believe we are having to take this action to protect our health service. Literally hundreds of thousands of us, doctors, professors, Royal Colleges, and members of the public are saying that this contract will result in worsened patient care and safety.

"We cannot sit back and let this happen."

James Rowley, another West-Yorkshire based junior doctor, said he was concerned that the argument behind the strike was being painted as purely being about doctors' pay.

"The NHS is being eroded piece-by-piece, and doctors' contracts are just the tip of the iceberg," he said.

"Nursing places and bursaries are being cut, social services are a shadow of what they were, mental health services are nearly none existent in some parts of England, A&Es are having to close or be downgraded, the list goes on.

"This a particularly pertinent point for very busy hospitals such as the BRI which has seen an unprecedented number of patients over the last few months and has one of the busiest A&E departments in the country.

"People are using the NHS more than ever before, but we are stretched to breaking point.

"People are leaving the profession because they don't want to be the last person left on a sinking ship."

A spokesman for the Department of Health said the escalation of strike action by the British Medical Association, the union representing junior doctors', would "inevitably put patients in harm's way."

"We have continually sought a negotiated solution over three years of talks, during which there were two walkouts from the BMA, and now there's only the one issue of Saturday pay outstanding," he said.

"If the doctors' union had agreed to negotiate on that as they promised to do through ACAS in November, we'd have a negotiated agreement by now.

"Instead, we had no choice but to proceed with proposals recommended and supported by NHS leaders, which were 90 per cent agreed with the BMA."

A new website allowing patients to search for any additional or extended services being provided in their local area is due to go live today.

For details, visit www.nhs.uk/strike.