Junior Doctors in England to Begin Five Consecutive Day Strike Next Month
Doctors in England are set to stage a five-day strike next month, in protest over jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that junior physicians will walk out for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who make up nearly 50% of all doctors in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after unsuccessful talks with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, urging the health minister to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals remain vacant. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the health secretary to understand that a deal including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over a number of years, giving newly trained doctors a raise of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the government would see that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the public and our those we treat and would also help prevent our doctors departing from the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in general practice.
More details will follow soon.
