Junior Doctors in the UK to Stage Five Consecutive Day Walkout in November

Doctors in England are preparing to begin a five-day walkout next month, in protest over pay and employment.

Walkout Information

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

Junior physicians, who constitute about half of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the government.

Reasons Behind the Strike

The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, pressing the health minister to end the scandal of unemployed physicians.”

“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in the UK are facing unemployment, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”

He added, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the health secretary to see that a deal including options to gradually reverse the pay reductions over several years, giving recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”

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

Who Are Resident Physicians?

Junior physicians 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 are expected soon.