Junior Physicians in England to Launch Five Consecutive Day Strike Next Month
Medical professionals in the UK are preparing to stage a five consecutive day walkout next month, in protest over pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The BMA announced that resident doctors will strike for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who constitute nearly 50% of all medical staff 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 commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have spent the last week in talks with officials, urging the health secretary to resolve the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. 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 slowly restore the pay reductions over a number of years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the government would see that our demands are not just fair but are in the interest of the community and our those we treat and would also help stop our doctors leaving the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
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.