Junior Physicians in England to Launch Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month
Doctors in England are preparing to stage 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 strike for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Junior physicians, who constitute nearly 50% of all medical staff in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, pressing the health secretary to resolve the scandal of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in the UK are facing unemployment, their talents being unused whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the health secretary to understand that a agreement offering solutions to slowly restore the cuts to pay over several years, providing recent graduates a raise of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the government would see that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the public and our patients and would also help stop our doctors leaving the health service.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in general practice.
More details are expected shortly.
