Resident Doctors in the UK to Launch Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month
Doctors in England are set to begin a five-day walkout in November, in protest over pay and employment.
Strike Details
The BMA announced that resident doctors will walk out for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who constitute nearly 50% of all medical staff 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 been negotiating for the past week with officials, pressing the health minister to resolve the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals 50% of second-year physicians in England are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals endure long waits for care and hospital shifts go unfilled. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the health secretary to see that a agreement offering solutions to slowly restore the cuts to pay over several years, providing newly trained doctors a pay increase of only £1 per hour for the next four years.”
“We trusted the authorities would see that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the community and our those we treat and would also help prevent our physicians leaving the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in primary care.
Further information will follow soon.
