Resident Doctors in England to Stage Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month
Doctors in the UK are preparing to begin a five-day strike in November, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that junior physicians will strike for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who constitute nearly 50% of all medical staff in the NHS, are taking this action after unsuccessful talks with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
Dr Jack Fletcher stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with government, urging the health minister to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts go unfilled. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the minister to understand that a deal offering solutions to gradually reverse the pay reductions over several years, giving recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”
“We trusted the authorities would see that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the public and our patients and would also help prevent our physicians leaving the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in primary care.
More details will follow shortly.
