A group of junior doctors who took part in strike action decided to turn it into a positive experience by teaching parents basic life support skills for children in Hazlemere.

The junior doctors, who all work at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, taught sessions at Holy Trinity Church on Amersham Road on Wednesday morning to try and turn the “devastating” strikes into something positive.   

Junior doctors across the country took part in a two-day strike in a row over new government contracts.  

Dr James Barge, who works in anaesthetics at Stoke Mandeville, said parents at the session were “very supportive.”

He said: “It went really well. We were keen to get something positive out of today because we are all devastated that we have had to strike and we wanted to spend our time in a positive way. We wanted people to get something out of this day.”

Speaking about their reasons for striking, Dr Barge said the job he loves is being “grossly eroded” and the emphasis is on the safety of “our patients and our livelihoods.”  

He said: “Personally, it comes down to the safety element. We deal with very sick people on a daily basis, we are in a stressful situation and it is hard enough at the best of times.

“At the moment, our contracts protect us so that we are rested but this new contract removes a lot of these safeguards and spreads the workforce much more thinly.

“We are going to be spread out over seven days rather than the current five days. None of us want to strike. Doctors are an unlikely group of people to strike so it shows how severe the situation has become.

“We want to be there to help people but we have concerns about the erosion of the safety element. And it has implications for our personal lives as well. We should be allowed to have time with our families. We already work lots of weekend and night shifts, so to make us work more is very unfair.”