Junior Doctors in the UK to Begin Five-Day Strike Next Month

Medical professionals in the UK are set to stage a five-day walkout in November, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.

Walkout Information

The BMA announced that resident doctors will strike for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.

Junior physicians, who constitute about half of all doctors in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after unsuccessful talks with the government.

Reasons Behind the Strike

Dr Jack Fletcher stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with government, urging the health secretary to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”

“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in England are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals 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, hoping the minister to see that a deal including options to slowly restore the cuts to pay over several years, providing newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”

“We trusted the authorities would recognize that our demands are not just fair but are in the interest of the community and our patients and would also help prevent our doctors leaving the health service.”

Who Are Resident Physicians?

Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, based on their field, or up to three years in primary care.

More details are expected soon.