"A nightmare. Absolute nightmare. It can't happen."

Those have been the phrases of a senior NHS Trust chief after I known as to interrupt the news of joint motion by junior docs and consultants over 4 days throughout England in October.

This will successfully carry the NHS to a grinding halt.

Christmas-style rotas will be in place to cowl emergencies. But that is it.

It is the worst-case state of affairs and one which was all the time more likely to occur irrespective of how unpalatable it appeared.

A senior guide informed me as a lot in the present day.

"We're effectively both doctors," he stated. "So it makes sense."

It makes much more sense when you think about how deeply entrenched either side are.

The authorities and the BMA usually are not even speaking.

And that is what, I sense, actually infuriates the medics.

They inform me Health Secretary Steve Barclay refuses to speak to them, and simply ignores them.

And that causes much more resentment.

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Doctors in Scotland have accepted a pay deal - so it reveals a settlement might be reached.

The authorities would possibly assume that as a result of it bought the nursing unions to accept a pay deal it'd have the ability to do the identical with the docs and consultants.

If they assume that then they're critically misunderstanding the power of feeling.

Both consultants and junior docs have a mandate for months of strike motion deep into the winter.

If final 12 months's NHS disaster was dangerous, this 12 months's may very well be quite a bit worse.