Junior Doctors in England to Begin Five-Day Walkout in November
Medical professionals in England are preparing to begin a five-day walkout next month, in protest over jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
The BMA announced that resident doctors will strike for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who make up about half of all doctors in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after unsuccessful talks with the health department.
Causes of the Walkout
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 minister to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in England are facing unemployment, 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, keen for the minister to see that a agreement including options to gradually reverse the cuts to pay over a number of years, giving recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”
“We trusted the government would recognize that our asks are not just fair but are in the best interests of the public and our patients and would also help prevent our physicians leaving the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in general practice.
More details will follow soon.
