Resident Doctors in England to Launch Five Consecutive Day Strike Next Month
Doctors in the UK are preparing to stage a five-day strike in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that junior physicians will strike for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who make up about half of all doctors in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
Dr Jack Fletcher stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with government, pressing the health secretary to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in England are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals remain vacant. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the health secretary to see that a deal including options to slowly restore the cuts to pay over a number of years, giving recent graduates a raise of only £1 per hour for the next four years.”
“We hoped the authorities would recognize that our demands are not just fair but are in the best interests of the community and our those we treat and would also help stop our physicians leaving the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians 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.
