Resident Doctors in the UK to Begin Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month
Medical professionals in England are preparing to stage a five-day walkout next month, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that resident doctors 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 proceeding with the strike after unsuccessful talks with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, urging the health minister to end the scandal of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals 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 added, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the minister to see that a agreement offering solutions to slowly restore the cuts to pay over several years, providing newly trained doctors 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 interest of the public and our those we treat and would also help prevent our doctors departing from 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 primary care.
Further information will follow shortly.
