Conservative Party deputy chairman Lee Anderson has said he will pay into a doctors’ union strike fund after he was forced to apologise over a “misleading” social media post.

The MP for Ashfield said he wanted to offer his “sincerest apologies” to Dr Tom Dolphin for “any distress, upset caused” following his post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

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

His apology came after he shared a link on X to a Mail Online article with the the headline: “Militant union leader at the heart of doctors strikes is a Labour activist who boasted of charging the NHS for a strike cover shift.”

On Sunday, Mr Anderson tweeted: “I accept that my words were misleading as the subject in question, Dr Tom Dolphin, was not on strike on the date of the shift in question but was simply covering a shift as a consultant for junior doctors who were on strike on August 11 2023.

“I would like to offer my sincerest apologies to Dr Dolphin for any distress, upset caused.

“I will also like to add that I understand that Dr Dolphin actually donated his pay for the covered shift which I believe was £1,870 to the BMA strike fund and, whilst I do not agree with the strikes, I want to go on the record to say that I think it is a very unselfish act on the part of Dr Dolphin to put his money into something he strongly believes in.

“I will make the same contribution to compensate the upset I may have caused Dr Dolphin. Please repost.”

Mr Anderson appears to have deleted the tweet from 6 October that he has apologised for.

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In response, Dr Dolphin tweeted: “A very gracious apology, thank you Lee Anderson.

“Thanks also for the donation. I hope it inspires others to donate to the strike fund as well.”

The BMA said it was “grateful to Mr Anderson for his contribution to our strike fund”.

“Doctors have been repeatedly misrepresented by the government during this industrial dispute so it is good that these false claims about Dr Thomas Dolphin have now been corrected,” the union posted on X.

The BMA says its strike fund is used to compensate striking workers to partially make up for the pay their employer deducts when they are on strike and to “reduce the financial pressures on people to cross the picket line”.

Junior doctors have staged a series of strikes in a long-running dispute over pay and conditions in the English NHS.

Over dates in September and October consultants and junior doctors went on strike together for the first time in NHS history.

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