Junior Doctors in the UK to Launch Five-Day Strike in November
Doctors in the UK are preparing to begin a five-day walkout next month, in protest over jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
The BMA stated that resident doctors will strike for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who constitute about half 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, “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 scandal of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in England are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the minister to see that a agreement including options to gradually reverse the pay reductions over a number of years, providing recent graduates a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the government would recognize that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the community and our patients and would also help stop our doctors leaving the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in general practice.
More details are expected shortly.
