Resident Physicians in England to Begin Five Consecutive Day Walkout in November
Doctors in the UK are preparing to stage a five consecutive day strike in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
The BMA stated that junior physicians will walk out for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who make up nearly 50% 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, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, pressing the health secretary to resolve the crisis of doctors going unemployed.”
“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 shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This cannot continue.”
He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the minister to see that a agreement including options to gradually reverse the pay reductions over several years, giving newly trained doctors a raise of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the government would recognize that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the public and our patients and would also help stop our physicians leaving the health service.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, based on their field, or as many as three years in general practice.
More details are expected shortly.
