Resident Doctors in England to Begin Five-Day Strike Next Month

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

Walkout Information

The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that resident doctors will strike for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.

Junior physicians, who make up about half of all medical staff in the NHS, are taking this action after failed negotiations 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 government, urging the health secretary to end the scandal of unemployed physicians.”

“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in the UK 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 continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the minister to see that a deal offering solutions to gradually reverse the pay reductions over a number of years, providing newly trained doctors a raise of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”

“We hoped the government would recognize that our demands are not just fair but are in the interest of the community and our those we treat and would also help stop our physicians leaving the NHS.”

Who Are Resident Physicians?

Junior physicians have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in general practice.

Further information are expected soon.