Junior Physicians in the UK to Stage Five-Day Walkout Next Month
Doctors in the UK are set to stage a five consecutive day walkout next month, in protest over pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The BMA stated that junior physicians will strike for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who constitute about half of all doctors in the National Health Service, 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 stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with officials, pressing the health minister to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in England are facing unemployment, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients endure long waits for care and hospital shifts go unfilled. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the health secretary to understand that a agreement offering solutions to slowly restore 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 see that our demands are not just fair but are in the interest of the public and our patients and would also help prevent our doctors departing from the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
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.
