Resident Doctors in the UK to Launch Five Consecutive Day Strike in November
Medical professionals in England are preparing to stage a five-day strike in November, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that junior physicians will strike for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who constitute about half of all medical staff in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
Dr Jack Fletcher stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, pressing the health minister to resolve the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in England are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused 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 offering solutions to gradually reverse the cuts to pay over several years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the government would see that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the public and our those we treat and would also help prevent our doctors departing from 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 primary care.
Further information are expected shortly.
