Synnovis strike action on 16 and 17 December is stood down

Updated at 7pm on Friday 13 December

The Unite union has advised us that their members working for Synnovis, our pathology provider, no longer plan to take strike action on Monday 16 and Tuesday 17 December, although the strike action planned for Wednesday 18, Thursday 19 and Friday 20 December is currently still planned to go ahead.

Our teams are contacting patients directly if we need to re-schedule an appointment or procedure, and we apologise to all patients affected.

If we have not contacted you, please attend as usual.

If your appointment on Monday 16 or Tuesday 17 has been cancelled, we will contact you if there are any further changes, including if we can reinstate your appointment.

Synnovis staff provide a wide range of tests, including blood tests, which are essential for many treatments and procedures. Their action on the planned strike days will therefore significantly affect the services we provide at:

• Guy's Hospital
• St Thomas' Hospital
• Evelina London Children's Hospital 
• Royal Brompton Hospital 
• Harefield Hospital
• and in our community services in Lambeth and Southwark.

We are doing everything possible to make sure that we can continue to provide urgent, emergency and essential inpatient care on these days. However, to help us to safely manage care for these patients, we are regrettably having to re-schedule a significant number of planned appointments and procedures.

Urgent and emergency care

Please use our services wisely. If you need medical advice but it's not an emergency, please consider using these services:

• call NHS 111 or visit the NHS 111 website
• make an appointment with your GP
• ask for advice from your local pharmacist

Our emergency department (A&E) at St Thomas' treats patients needing urgent or emergency care, and patients will be seen according to clinical need. If our staff feel that an alternative service is more appropriate they may redirect you.

Emergency services are currently extremely busy and we ask that you help our staff by using the right service for your needs.