Junior Physicians in England to Begin Five Consecutive Day Strike in November
Doctors in England are preparing to begin a five consecutive day strike next month, in protest over jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
The BMA announced that junior physicians will strike for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Junior physicians, who make up about half of all doctors in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
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 government, pressing the health secretary to resolve the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in England 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 added, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the health secretary to understand that a agreement including options to slowly restore the cuts to pay over several years, providing recent graduates a raise of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the authorities would recognize that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the public and our those we treat and would also help prevent our doctors 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.
Further information will follow shortly.
