Junior Doctors in England to Launch Five-Day Walkout Next Month
Doctors in England are set to stage a five-day walkout in November, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that junior physicians will strike for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Junior physicians, who constitute nearly 50% of all doctors in the NHS, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the health department.
Causes of the Walkout
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, urging the health secretary to resolve the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“Our survey reveals 50% of second-year physicians in England are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals endure long waits for care and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the minister to understand that a deal offering solutions to gradually reverse the pay reductions over a number of years, providing newly trained doctors a raise of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the government would see that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the community and our patients and would also help prevent our physicians leaving the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in primary care.
More details are expected soon.
