Junior Doctors in the UK to Launch Five-Day Walkout Next Month
Doctors in the UK are set to stage a five-day walkout next month, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The BMA announced that resident doctors will walk out for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who constitute nearly 50% of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
Dr Jack Fletcher commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, pressing the health minister to resolve the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in England are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts remain vacant. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the health secretary to see that a deal offering solutions to gradually reverse the pay reductions over a number of years, providing recent graduates a pay increase of only £1 per hour for the next four years.”
“We hoped the authorities would recognize that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the community and our patients and would also help prevent our physicians departing from the health service.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Resident doctors 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.
Further information will follow soon.
