Junior Physicians in the UK to Launch Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month

Medical professionals in England are preparing to begin a five-day walkout next month, in protest over jobs and pay.

Strike Details

The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that resident doctors will walk out 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

The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have spent the last week in talks with government, urging the health minister to end the scandal of unemployed physicians.”

“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in England are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused 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 understand that a agreement offering solutions to gradually reverse the pay reductions over several years, providing recent graduates a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”

“We hoped the government would recognize that our asks are not just fair but are in the interest of the community and our patients and would also help stop our physicians departing from the NHS.”

About Resident Doctors

Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, based on their field, or as many as three years in primary care.

Further information will follow soon.