Resident Doctors in England to Launch Five-Day Strike Next Month
Medical professionals in the UK are preparing to stage a five-day walkout next month, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The BMA stated that resident doctors will strike for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Junior physicians, who constitute nearly 50% of all medical staff in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
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 government, pressing the health secretary to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in the UK 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 talked with the government in good faith, keen for the minister to see that a deal offering solutions to gradually reverse the pay reductions over several years, providing newly trained doctors a raise of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the government would recognize that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the public and our those we treat and would also help stop our physicians leaving the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in general practice.
More details will follow shortly.
