Resident Doctors in England to Stage Five Consecutive Day Strike in November
Medical professionals in England are preparing to stage a five consecutive day walkout next month, in protest over jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The BMA announced that junior physicians will strike for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who constitute about half of all doctors in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
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 minister 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 countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts go unfilled. This cannot continue.”
He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the health secretary to understand that a deal including options to gradually reverse the cuts to pay over several years, giving recent graduates a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the authorities would see that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the community and our patients 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 as many as three years in general practice.
Further information will follow shortly.
