Junior Doctors in England to Begin Five Consecutive Day Strike Next Month

Doctors in the UK are set to stage a five consecutive day walkout next month, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.

Walkout Information

The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that resident doctors will walk out for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.

Resident doctors, who constitute nearly 50% of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the health department.

Reasons Behind the Strike

Dr Jack Fletcher commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, urging the health minister to resolve the scandal 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 millions of patients endure long waits for care and hospital shifts go unfilled. This cannot continue.”

He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the minister to see that a deal offering solutions to slowly restore the pay reductions over a number of years, giving newly trained doctors a raise of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”

“We trusted the government would recognize that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the public and our patients and would also help stop our doctors leaving the NHS.”

About Resident Doctors

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

More details will follow shortly.