STRIKES by NHS staff are “one of our biggest risks” this winter according to a Basingstoke hospital chief.

Speaking at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (HHFT) annual general meeting, chief operating officer Andy Hyett said industrial action had resulted in a significant impact across its three hospitals – Basingstoke, Andover and Winchester.

“We have had to cancel numerous patients waiting for diagnostics and procedures,” he said, adding: “We have another radiographer strike around the corner.”

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Nationally, more than 1m outpatient appointments and operations have been cancelled across the NHS in England since strikes began in December.

The latest strikes in September by consultants and junior doctors forced hospitals to reschedule 129,913 more “episodes of care”, according to NHS England, taking the total to just over 1m.

Mr Hyett commended staff at HHFT for planning for the strikes, and said their efforts had mitigated the impact “probably better than some organisations”.

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However, he added: “But it is one of our biggest risks to performance recovery this winter. If one professional group is on strike the whole thing falls apart. You can’t go ahead if you have a surgeon but not an anaesthetist, for example.”

The Society of Radiographers has confirmed a 24-hour strike from 8am on Tuesday, October 3 to 8am on Wednesday, October 4 at 37 NHS trusts.