Resident Physicians in the UK to Stage Five Consecutive Day Strike Next Month
Doctors in England are set to stage a five-day walkout next month, in protest over pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that junior physicians will strike for five consecutive days from November 14 at 7am to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who make up about half of all doctors in the National Health Service, are taking this action after unsuccessful talks with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
Dr Jack Fletcher stated, “We did not want to reach this point. We have spent the last week in talks with officials, urging the health secretary to end the scandal of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in the UK are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts go unfilled. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the health secretary to understand that a agreement including options to gradually reverse the cuts to pay over several years, giving recent graduates a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the authorities would recognize that our asks are not just fair but are in the interest of the public and our those we treat and would also help stop our doctors leaving the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors 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 are expected shortly.
