Resident Doctors in England to Stage Five Consecutive Day Strike in November
Medical professionals in England are preparing to begin a five consecutive day walkout in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
The BMA stated that resident doctors will walk out for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who make up nearly 50% of all doctors in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after unsuccessful talks with the health department.
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, pressing the health minister to end the crisis of doctors going unemployed.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in the UK are facing unemployment, their talents being unused whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts remain vacant. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the health secretary to see that a deal offering solutions to slowly restore the cuts to pay over a number of years, providing recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the authorities would see that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the public and our patients and would also help prevent our doctors departing from the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in primary care.
Further information will follow soon.
