Junior Doctors in England to Launch Five-Day Walkout in November
Doctors in England are preparing to stage a five-day strike next month, in protest over pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The BMA announced that resident doctors will strike for five consecutive days from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who make up about half of all doctors in the NHS, are taking this action 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 officials, pressing the health minister to resolve the crisis 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 millions of patients endure long waits for care and shifts in hospitals remain vacant. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the health secretary to understand that a deal offering solutions to slowly restore the pay reductions over several years, providing recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the authorities 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 stop our doctors departing from the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians have as much as eight years of experience working as a hospital doctor, based on their field, or as many as three years in primary care.
Further information are expected shortly.
