THOUSANDS of operations and outpatient appointments across Scotland are expected to be postponed or cancelled next month as doctors stage their first strike in a generation.
Every hospital and GP surgery could be affected as part of an increasingly bitter row over pension contributions.
Union leaders said yesterday that members had voted overwhelmingly for a strike.
The British Medical Association (BMA) accused the UK Government of reneging on a deal agreed only four years ago as it confirmed it was "very reluctantly" taking industrial action.
The strike, which could potentially involve up to 10,000 doctors across Scotland, has been called for June 21, although doctors reserve the right to take further action.
Outpatient appointments will be cancelled and non-urgent procedures postponed in the first such strike since 1975.
However, patients will still receive care if they need emergency or urgent treatment and doctors will go to work as normal.
Whether those who strike are docked a day's wages will be down to health boards, the BMA said yesterday. It also sought to reassure patients the action would not place them in danger.
A spokeswoman said if hospital doctors were unsure what to do "our advice is to treat". GPs would not schedule appointments for June 21 but, "in practice, if somebody turns up they will be seen", she added.
Dr Brian Keighley, chairman of the BMA in Scotland, said: "It is the only means by which we can demonstrate our anger at the UK Government's unfair and unnecessary changes to the NHS pension scheme.
"They have refused to negotiate meaningfully with us and the other trade unions and, given doctors' strength of feeling, we have been left with no option but to go forward with this action."
Dr Hamish Meldrum, chair-man of Council at the BMA, said that doctors would "far prefer to negotiate for a fairer solution".
The BMA argues doctors' pensions are affordable and sustainable and the scheme as a whole in the black.
The union warns the changes would see doctors paying up to 14.5% of their salaries into their pensions – twice as much as some other public sector staff.
However, Westminster Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said the public would "neither understand nor sympathise".
He said some doctors working now could enter retirement with a pension worth the equivalent of £68,000 a year. To receive the equivalent in the private sector would require a pension pot of £1.5 million, he added.
He accused the BMA of failing to come up with an alternative, and described as nonsense claims the Government did not enter negotiations.
The Scottish Government runs the NHS pension scheme north of the Border.
However, it has faced warnings it will suffer a reduction in its block grant if it does not follow the UK plans to increase how much doctors pay into their pensions.
Dr Keighley said members were also angry with the Scottish Government, which he said had already imposed a rise in contributions.
He said: "Despite the Scottish Government's commitment to continued talks with health trade unions in Scotland, given UK Treasury constraints, there seems little the Scottish Government is willing or able to do other than to follow the route set out for England and Wales."
The BMA balloted more than 100,000 members across the UK, with 63% voting in favour of strike action for strike action.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: "While we do not support industrial action we have made abundantly clear our principled opposition to UK Government policy to increase employee contributions. Doctors have voted on industrial action based on the talks on reforms to the NHS pension scheme in England and Wales.
"In Scotland, we have taken a different approach and are working through the established partnership structures to agree a way forward on pensions.
"The BMA is very much part of that process and we call on it to continue the negotiations."
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