Resident Physicians in England to Stage Five Consecutive Day Strike Next Month
Doctors in the UK are preparing to begin a five-day strike in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
The 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 constitute nearly 50% of all doctors in the NHS, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, urging the health minister to resolve the crisis of doctors going unemployed.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in England are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts remain vacant. This cannot continue.”
He added, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the health secretary to see that a deal offering solutions to slowly restore the cuts to pay over several years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”
“We hoped the government would recognize that our asks are not just fair but are in the interest of the public and our patients and would also help stop our physicians departing from the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians have as much as eight years of experience working as a hospital doctor, based on their field, or as many as three years in primary care.
Further information will follow soon.
