Resident Physicians in England to Launch Five Consecutive Day Walkout in November
Doctors in the UK are preparing to begin a five consecutive day walkout next month, in protest over jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that resident doctors will strike for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who constitute about half of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are taking this action after unsuccessful talks with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. 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 wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts remain vacant. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the minister to understand that a deal including options to gradually reverse the pay reductions over a number of years, giving newly trained doctors a raise of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”
“We trusted the government would recognize that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the community and our patients and would also help prevent our physicians leaving the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
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 primary care.
More details will follow shortly.
