Doctors strikes do not increase death rates among patients, according to a recent study.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital found that, in high-income countries, "patients do not come to serious harm during industrial action provided that provisions are made for emergency care." The study showed that death rates remained the same, or decreased, during all previous doctor strikes that have been studied in developed countries. They say that strikes can therefore be organized in such a way that patient safety is not compromised.

Although the right to strike is recognized as a fundamental human right by the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the European Union, some doctors feel industrial action is inconsistent with their over-riding duty to advocate for their patients. Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has said doctor strikes inevitably expose patients to serious harm.

"Some doctors will always feel that industrial action is fundamentally inconsistent with their professional obligations because of its inevitable impact on patients," researchers explained in the study. "However, in balancing their competing priorities, doctors in high income countries can be reassured by the consistent evidence that patients do not come to serious harm during industrial action provided that provisions are made for emergency care."

For the study, David Metcalfe and colleagues examined data from previous strikes for evidence to support claims that industrial action harms patients. They found that, within developed healthcare systems, doctor strikes have not been found to affect mortality provided that emergency care provision is made.

For instance, three studies examined the consequences of a strike by physicians in California in 1976, where care for all but emergency cases was withheld over five weeks, and all found that mortality fell during the strike period.

Similarly, an analysis of death certificates following action by 73 percent of doctors in Jerusalem in 1983 found no excess mortality during the strike, while research at an emergency department after a nine-day strike by junior doctors in Spain in 1999 reported no mortality difference between strike and non-strike periods.

And, in 2003, when most doctors in Croatia went on strike for four weeks, a subsequent study found no significant association between the industrial action and patient deaths.

The only report of increased mortality associated with strike action was from South Africa, where the odds of death increased at one hospital during a 20-day strike in 2010. However, this strike included both doctors and nurses who withdrew all services from patients, and left only one hospital open to serve a population of 5.5 million people.

Researchers revealed that patient deaths do not increase during doctor strikes in developed countries because there were guaranteed continued provision of emergency care.

Emergency care may even improve during industrial action, they add. For example, during the 1999 strike in Spain, junior doctors in the emergency department were replaced by more senior physicians.

The findings are detailed in the journal The BMJ.