Tory MP apologises to doctor over strike tweet

Tory MP Lee Anderson has apologised to a doctor over a “misleading” social media post. 

He has offered his “sincerest apologies” to Tom Dolphin for any distress caused by a post on X, related to the ongoing junior doctors’ strike. 

Anderson has agreed to pay £1,870 to the British Medical Association (BMA) strike fund to “compensate the upset I may have caused”.

In the since-deleted tweet on X, Anderson responded to a Mail Online article that reported Dr Tom Dolphin had “boasted of charging the NHS for a strike cover shift”.

A tweet from Dr Dolphin on that day suggests that “some commentators” had not understood that he, as a consultant, had been covering for striking junior doctors. He had not been on strike himself on this occasion.

On Sunday, Anderson wrote a post to say that his words had been misleading.