Resident Physicians in England to Begin Five Consecutive Day Strike in November
Doctors in the UK are preparing to begin a five-day strike in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
The BMA announced that resident doctors will walk out for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who make up nearly 50% of all doctors in the National Health Service, are taking this action after unsuccessful talks with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “We did not want to reach this point. We have spent the last week in talks with officials, pressing the health secretary to end the crisis of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in England are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals endure long waits for care and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the minister to understand that a deal offering solutions to gradually reverse the pay reductions over several years, giving recent graduates a raise of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the government would recognize that our demands are not just fair but are in the best interests of the public and our patients and would also help stop our doctors departing from the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in general practice.
More details will follow shortly.
