Resident Doctors in England to Begin Five-Day Strike Next Month
Medical professionals in England are preparing to begin a five-day strike next month, in protest over pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The BMA announced that resident doctors will strike for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who constitute nearly 50% of all doctors in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after unsuccessful talks with the health department.
Causes of the Walkout
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, urging the health minister to end 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 countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts remain vacant. This cannot continue.”
He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the minister to see that a agreement including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over a number of years, giving recent graduates a raise of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the government would recognize that our asks are not just fair but are in the interest of the community and our patients and would also help stop our doctors departing from 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 general practice.
More details will follow shortly.
