Junior Doctors in England to Launch Five Consecutive Day Strike in November
Doctors in the UK are preparing to stage a five consecutive day strike next month, in protest over jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The BMA announced that junior physicians will walk out for five days in a row 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 taking this action after failed negotiations with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
Dr Jack Fletcher stated, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, pressing the health minister to end the scandal of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in England are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients endure long waits for care and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the minister to understand that a deal including options to gradually reverse the cuts to pay over a number of years, giving recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”
“We hoped the government would see that our demands are not just fair but are in the best interests of the public and our patients and would also help prevent our doctors leaving the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, based on their field, or as many as three years in primary care.
Further information will follow soon.
