Resident Doctors in England to Launch Five-Day Strike in November
Doctors in the UK are set to begin a five-day walkout next month, in protest over pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that junior physicians will strike for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Junior physicians, who constitute nearly 50% of all doctors in the NHS, are taking this action after unsuccessful talks with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
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 secretary to end 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 talents being unused whilst countless individuals endure long waits for care and hospital shifts go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the minister to understand that a deal including options to gradually reverse the pay reductions over several years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the authorities would recognize that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the community and our patients and would also help stop our doctors departing from the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in general practice.
Further information will follow soon.
