Junior Doctors in the UK to Stage Five Consecutive Day Strike Next Month
Medical professionals in England are set to begin a five-day walkout in November, in protest over pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that resident doctors will walk out for five consecutive days from November 14 at 7am to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who constitute about half of all doctors in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, pressing the health minister to resolve the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients endure long waits for care and shifts in hospitals remain vacant. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the health secretary to understand that a deal offering solutions to slowly restore the cuts to pay over a number of years, giving recent graduates a raise of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the government would see that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the community and our patients and would also help prevent our physicians leaving the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, based on their field, or up to three years in primary care.
Further information will follow shortly.
