Junior Doctors in the UK to Launch Five Consecutive Day Walkout in November
Medical professionals in England are preparing to begin a five consecutive day strike in November, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The BMA stated that junior physicians will strike for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who constitute about half of all doctors in the National Health Service, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
Dr Jack Fletcher stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with government, pressing the health minister to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the health secretary to understand that a agreement offering solutions to gradually reverse the pay reductions over several years, giving recent graduates a pay increase of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the authorities would recognize that our asks are not just fair but are in the best interests of the public and our those we treat and would also help prevent our physicians departing from the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in primary care.
More details are expected soon.