Resident Physicians in the UK to Stage Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month
Doctors in England are set to begin a five consecutive day strike next month, in protest over pay and employment.
Strike Details
The BMA announced that junior physicians will strike 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 National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, pressing the health minister to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the health secretary to understand that a agreement including options to gradually reverse the pay reductions over a number of years, providing recent graduates a pay increase of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the authorities would recognize that our demands are not just fair but are in the best interests of the community and our patients and would also help prevent our doctors departing from the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Resident doctors have as much as eight years of experience working as a hospital doctor, based on their field, or as many as three years in primary care.
More details will follow shortly.
