Junior Doctors in the UK to Stage Five Consecutive Day Strike Next Month
Medical professionals in England are set to begin a five-day strike in November, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that resident doctors will walk out for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who make up about half of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
Dr Jack Fletcher commented, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with government, pressing the health secretary to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in England are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts remain vacant. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the health secretary to understand that a deal including options to gradually reverse the pay reductions over several years, providing recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the authorities would recognize that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the public and our those we treat and would also help prevent our physicians departing from the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, based on their field, or as many as three years in general practice.
More details will follow shortly.
