Resident Doctors in England to Stage Five Consecutive Day Walkout in November
Medical professionals in the UK are preparing to stage a five-day strike in November, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that junior physicians will walk out for five days in a row 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.
Causes of the Walkout
Dr Jack Fletcher stated, “We did not want to reach this point. We have spent the last week in talks with government, pressing the health minister to resolve the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in the UK are struggling to find jobs, 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, keen for the minister to see that a agreement including options to slowly restore the cuts to pay over several years, providing newly trained doctors a raise of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the authorities would see that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the community and our patients and would also help stop our doctors leaving the health service.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in primary care.
Further information will follow shortly.
