Resident Physicians in the UK to Launch Five-Day Walkout Next Month
Doctors in England are preparing to begin a five-day walkout next month, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that resident doctors will strike for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who constitute nearly 50% 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 stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with officials, pressing the health secretary to resolve the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in the UK are facing unemployment, their talents being unused whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the health secretary to see that a agreement offering solutions to gradually reverse the cuts to pay over a number of years, giving recent graduates a raise of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the government would see 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 physicians departing from the health service.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in general practice.
Further information will follow shortly.
