Junior Doctors in England to Launch Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month
Doctors in England are set to begin a five consecutive day strike in November, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The 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 nearly 50% of all doctors in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after unsuccessful talks with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with officials, pressing the health minister 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 millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This cannot continue.”
He added, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the minister to see that a deal including options to gradually reverse the cuts to pay over several years, giving recent graduates a pay increase of only £1 per hour for the next four years.”
“We hoped the government would see that our demands are not just fair 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
Resident doctors 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.
